Joseph Mallord William Turner The Bay of Naples from near Virgil's Tomb 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 69 Verso:
The Bay of Naples from near Virgil’s Tomb 1819
D15905
Turner Bequest CLXXXV 90 a
Turner Bequest CLXXXV 90 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘858’ bottom left
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.550, as ‘Do. [Pozzuoli, with Vesuvius in distance]’.
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Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, p.425, as ‘The Bay of Naples from near Virgil’s tomb’.
As Cecilia Powell first identified, this sketch depicts the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius seen from the Posillipo Hill near the so-called Tomb of Virgil.1 During the nineteenth century it was one of the most famous vistas of Naples and Turner made a number of variant drawings of it during his 1819 sojourn. The prospect looks east across the semi-circular sweep of the Chiaia waterfront towards the headland of Castel dell’Ovo with Vesuvius rising beyond. Above the city to the left are the Castel Sant’Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino, whilst the building along the ridge of the Vomero Hill to the far left is the seventeenth-century Villa Belvedere. A small part of the composition spills over onto the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 70 (D15865; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 68). As Turner’s inscription on the facing page indicates, the land adjoining Virgil’s Tomb during the nineteenth century was a private vineyard, see the description on folio 71 (D15867; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 69).
Other sketches relating to the visit to Virgil’s Tomb can be found on folios 69, 70–71 (D15904, D15865–D15867; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 90, 68–69) and in the Naples; Rome C. Studies sketchbook (Tate D16102 and D16143; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 14 and 55). Compare also a drawing by James Hakewill (1778–1843), Naples and Mount Vesuvius from above Virgil’s Tomb 1816 (British School at Rome Library), reproduced in Hakewill’s Picturesque Tour of Italy (published 1820), a book to which Turner also contributed illustrations.2
Nicola Moorby
October 2010
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘The Bay of Naples from near Virgil’s Tomb 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www