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 > Turin, Como, Lugarno, Maggiore ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?San Giorio di Susa, with the Castle 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?San Giorio di Susa, with the Castle’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 5 Recto:
?San Giorio di Susa, with the Castle 1819
D14152
Turner Bequest CLXXIV 4
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 186 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Road’ bottom left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘284’ top right and ‘4’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXIV 4’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch has tentatively been identified by Federico Crimi as depicting San Giorio di Susa,1 a small town in the Susa valley approximately twelve miles east of the French-Italian border that Turner passed on his way to Turin at the start of his Italian tour in 1819. The town’s most prominent landmark is a medieval castle, the castello, which was destroyed during the seventeenth century. The fortress stands on a hill overlooking the valley to the east and Turner appears to have drawn the ruins from the road approaching the town to the west. A further view of the same building can be found on folio 4 (D14150; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 3b).

Nicola Moorby
December 2012

1
Crimi 2007, p.23 note 16.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘?San Giorio di Susa, with the Castle 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-san-giorio-di-susa-with-the-castle-r1142675, accessed 21 December 2024.