Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Imola 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Verso:
?Imola 1819
D14555
Turner Bequest CLXXVI 33a
Turner Bequest CLXXVI 33a
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 184 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Imola]’ towards bottom right
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Imola]’ towards bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.518, CLXXVI 33a, as ‘View of “Imola” (?)’.
1984
Cecilia Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, pp.92, 466 note 110.
1987
Cecilia Powell, Turner in the South: Rome, Naples, Florence, New Haven and London 1987, pp.25, 202 note 46.
2008
James Hamilton, ‘Turner e l’Italia’ in Hamilton, Nicola Moorby, Christopher Baker and others, Turner e l’Italia, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara 2008, pp.43, 90 note 22, as a Bologna subject.
2009
James Hamilton, ‘Turner’s Route to Rome’ in Hamilton, Nicola Moorby, Christopher Baker and others, Turner & Italy, exhibition catalogue, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 2009, pp.42, 150 note 22, as a Bologna subject.
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, this view includes what seems to be a substantial wooden bridge with a fortified tower or gateway and other buildings beyond. Although it falls among views of Bologna (see under folio 24 recto (D14532), and has been classified along with them without further comment more recently,1 Turner’s use of this sketchbook was occasionally haphazard, and Finberg tentatively interpreted the scrawled inscription as ‘Imola’, indicating the town approximately twenty miles south-east of Bologna on Turner’s eastwards route towards Ancona.
There are figure studies and a slight landscape labelled ‘Imola’ in the contemporary Route to Rome sketchbook (Tate D13864; Turner Bequest CLXXI 3a), together with street views (Tate D13890, D13894; CLXXI 17a, 19a); there may also be a view near Poggio, a few miles to its north-west (Tate D13922; CLXXI 33a).
Matthew Imms
March 2017
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘?Imola 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