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

Turner executed these three landscape studies with the sketchbook turned vertically. At the top is a silhouetted profile of a hilltop town, with a prominent tower at the centre. The sketch beneath appears to be a more distant view of the same subject, with a lake or river to the left. The mountainous topography of the lower view presumably depicts the central Apennines in Umbria; Turner’s inscription at the bottom of the page possibly reads ‘Terni’. A precise location for these views is difficult to pinpoint, although they likely represent landscapes in Lazio or Umbria, captured in early January 1829 as Turner travelled north-east from Rome via Terni towards Ancona on the Adriatic coast.