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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > South-Eastern France and Genoa 1838 > Coast of Genoa Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner View of Celle Ligure, on the Ligurian Coast 1838

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View of Celle Ligure, on the Ligurian Coast’ 1838
Folio 9 Recto:
View of Celle Ligure, on the Ligurian Coast 1838
D21287
Turner Bequest CCXXXII 9
Pencil on white wove paper, 98 x 157 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Cela’ top right
Inscribed in red ink ‘9’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXII 9’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This outline sketch, executed with the page turned horizontally, depicts a view of a coastline. A rough impression of a distant town is visible on the top of cliff at the centre of the composition. There is also the suggestion of a tower amidst the slopes on the left.
In his 1909 Inventory of the Turner Bequest, A.J. Finberg, guided by Turner’s inscription in the top right of the page, tentatively identified the subject as Celle Ligure, a small town situated on the Italy’s Ligurian coast, near to Savona and approximately twenty-five miles south-west of the Genoa, the final destination of the journey recorded in this sketchbook.1 Geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot has recently endorsed Finberg’s view, and confirmed Celle Ligure as the subject of the drawing.2
For an overview of Turner’s itinerary through this region, see the Introduction.

Nicola Moorby
October 2018

Revised by Hayley Flynn
June 2025

1
Finberg 1909, vol.II, p.711.
2
Roland Courtot, ‘Carnet de voyage de Turner: 9. Notebook CCXXXII “Côte de Génès” (1838?)’, Hypotheses, 24 August 2018, accessed 24 June 2024, https://carnetswt.hypotheses.org/949.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘View of Celle Ligure, on the Ligurian Coast 1838’, catalogue entry, October 2018, revised by Hayley Flynn, June 2025, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2026, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/view-of-celle-ligure-on-the-ligurian-coast-r1213464, accessed 16 September 2026.