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 Harbour and the Lighthouse from the Gulf 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Trieste Harbour and the Lighthouse from the Gulf’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 64 Verso:
Trieste Harbour and the Lighthouse from the Gulf 1840
D30124
Turner Bequest CCXCIX 64a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 127 x 198 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, the view is east from the sea on the approach to Trieste, centred on its lighthouse with the profile of the city lightly indicated on the heights beyond, and the Castello di San Giusto on the skyline to the left. At the top right is what appears to be a continuation to the left of the main view, with masts along the waterfront. The lighthouse, operational from 1833, still stands on its castellated base at the southern end of the harbour, but was superseded in the 1920s by the monumental Faro della Vittoria, north of the city.1
This is one of a sequence of views in and around the Adriatic port, made working inwards from the back of this sketchbook; see under folio 57 recto (D30109).2
1
See ‘Fanale – Lanterna’, Istria on the Internet, accessed 23 April 2018, http://www.istrianet.org/istria//architecture/lighthouses/trieste-lanterna.htm.
2
See also Powell 1995, pp.66, 81 note 18.
Technical notes:
There is staining at the top centre from the leather pencil loop secured under the rear paste-down (D30129; Turner Bequest CCXCIX 67).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Trieste Harbour and the Lighthouse from the Gulf 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-harbour-and-the-lighthouse-from-the-gulf-r1196974, accessed 25 September 2024.