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

This elemental colour study shows apparently shows a range of hills beyond a plain with trees in the distance, below a pale dawn sky. Andrew Wilton suggested it was a view of the Roman Campagna dating from Turner’s first Italian tour in 1819, comparing its colour and handling to identified views such as one of the River Tiber and Ponte Molle from the Naples: Rome. C. Studies sketchbook (Tate D16123; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 35);1 alternatively, it could be a colour study for a Campagna view to complement various finished watercolours of Italian subjects made in the early 1820s.2

Ian Warrell has compared the colouring with three wash lay-ins of bright skies over barely indicated, pale landscapes (Tate D17180, D40303, D40304; Turner Bequest CXCVI P 1, 2, 3), which he suggests as predating the 1819 tour, ‘as even before this date his palette had begun to lighten’.3 Eric Shanes has tentatively offered Yorkshire as an alternative subject, without further comment or indication of a possible date.4 While the remarks in relation to the Italian tour in particular are noted here, in the absence of clear landmarks in the composition and given the lack of a watermark the sheet has been left for the present in the context of generic landscapes; compare Tate D25188 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 66) in particular.

Verso:

Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘62’ at centre, ascending vertically; inscribed by John Ruskin in pencil ‘AB 93 P | O’ bottom right; inscribed in pencil ‘CCLXIII 126’ bottom right; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCLXIII – 126’ towards bottom left. The surface is somewhat stained.