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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Milan to Venice Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Columns of San Lorenzo on the Corso di Porta Ticinese, Milan, with the Basilica Beyond 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Columns of San Lorenzo on the Corso di Porta Ticinese, Milan, with the Basilica Beyond’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 10 Recto:
The Columns of San Lorenzo on the Corso di Porta Ticinese, Milan, with the Basilica Beyond 1819
D14342
Turner Bequest CLXXV 10
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 185 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘10’ top right and ‘300’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXV 10’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The Turner scholar C.F. Bell elaborated on Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Roman Colonnade, San Lorenzo’): ‘Corso di Porta Ticinese, Milan’.1 The Roman colonnade known as the Colonne di San Lorenzo stands on the east side of the street, with the Basilica of San Lorenzo just beyond; Turner faced south-east to take in both structures.
The low buildings in the foreground, the higher ones beyond and what appears to be a shrine have since been demolished,2 leaving an approximately square section of plain brick wall articulated by the large pointed arch at the centre here and the smaller, high opening with a rounded arch to its left, the headers of which Turner also indicates. In the distance down the street is the archway of the medieval Porta Ticinese.
There is a drawing made from within the colonnade on folio 11 recto (D14343). See under folio 2 recto (D14328) for other Milan views.
1
Undated MS note by C.F. Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.512.
2
See Crimi 2007, p.39 note 56.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
March 2017

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Columns of San Lorenzo on the Corso di Porta Ticinese, Milan, with the Basilica Beyond 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-columns-of-san-lorenzo-on-the-corso-di-porta-ticinese-r1186455, accessed 17 May 2024.