J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Trieste, Graz and Danube Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Trieste and the Gulf from the Ramparts of the Castello di San Giusto; ?a Castle among Mountains near Graz 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Trieste and the Gulf from the Ramparts of the Castello di San Giusto; ?a Castle among Mountains near Graz’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 59 Verso:
Trieste and the Gulf from the Ramparts of the Castello di San Giusto; ?a Castle among Mountains near Graz 1840
D30114
Turner Bequest CCXCIX 59a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 127 x 198 mm
Partial watermark ‘atman’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Gratz]’ above right of centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, the lower, more detailed view is north from the bastions of Trieste’s Castello di San Giusto to the old town and along the rugged coast of the gulf to the north-west. A soldier with crossed shoulder belts is indicated overlooking the scene at the bottom left. This is one of a sequence of views in and around the Adriatic port city, made working inwards from the back of this sketchbook; see under folio 57 recto (D30109).1
Above, towards the outer edge, is a rough sketch of a mountain fortress; compare the smaller study skyline view on folio 60 recto opposite (D30115). As implied by Cecilia Powell,2 both sketches may be labelled ‘Gratz’, indicating their proximity to Graz (see under folio 41 verso; D30079), the next significant stop on Turner’s route north-east towards Vienna.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See also Powell 1995, pp.66, 81 note 18.
2
See ibid., p.240.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Trieste and the Gulf from the Ramparts of the Castello di San Giusto; ?a Castle among Mountains near Graz 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-trieste-and-the-gulf-from-the-ramparts-of-the-castello-di-r1196964, accessed 24 April 2024.