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

This page contains several views associated with Turner’s exploration of the coastline within the Gulf of Naples. The main sketch in the top left-hand corner represents a view of the Rione Terra, or old port of Pozzuoli seen from the sea. The buildings built directly on the seafront include the Cathedral (Duomo) of San Procolo on the left and the castle on the right. A couple of boats are moored against the quayside and Turner’s written inscription records an observed incident of a ‘girl dancing’ to some ‘fishermen’, possibly with castanets. For further sketches of the port see folios 66, 73–73 verso and 91 (D15686, D15699–D15700 and D15735; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 64, 71–71a and 89).

Beneath the view of Pozzuoli are two further landscape drawings. The larger of these is a rough outline study depicting the light of the crescent moon reflecting on the waters of the Bay of Baiae near Cape Misenum (Capo Miseno). The smaller thumbnail sketch is too rough to be positively identified but perhaps depicts the smoking volcanic crater of Solfatura in the Campi Flegrei (Phlegraean or Burning Fields). Parallel with the right-hand edge of the sheet there is also a third sketch incorporating the indistinct outline of some hills.