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 65 Recto:
Trieste Harbour and the Lighthouse from the Gulf 1840
D30125
Turner Bequest CCXCIX 65
Pencil on cream wove paper, 127 x 198 mm
Partial watermark ‘J. Wha’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘65’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXCIX – 65’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner used this page horizontally, turned both ways, for two main views of Trieste looking north-east from the sea. Both feature its lighthouse, with a detail complementing the lower, inverted study towards the gutter showing the stone gallery set on prominent corbels below the lantern. The structure still stands, set on a castellated base at the southern end of the harbour, but was superseded in the 1920s by the monumental Faro della Vittoria, north of the city.1
These are among 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).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-r1196975, accessed 10 May 2024.