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 Three Sketches on Lake Maggiore; Including One of Luino 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Three Sketches on Lake Maggiore; Including One of Luino’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 75 Recto:
Three Sketches on Lake Maggiore; Including One of Luino 1819
D14288
Turner Bequest CLXXIV 74
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 186 mm
Inscribed by the artist ‘wood [?Bank]’ bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘74’ bottom left, inverted and ‘284’ top left, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CLXXIV 74’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s tour of the Italian Lakes took him from Lake Lugano to Lake Maggiore where he arrived at Luino, a small town on the eastern shore. Federico Crimi has identified the three sketches on this page as related to that part of the artist’s journey. The two studies at the top are general views across Lake Maggiore. The uppermost vista looks south-west from Luino and includes the profile of Monte Cannero and the Borromean Gulf with, on the far left-hand side, the Punta di Germignaga.1 The middle vista looks north-west towards Monte Cannero and Monte Limidario.2 The most detailed sketch at the bottom meanwhile is a view of Luino itself, looking north-east along the shoreline towards the Church of San Giuseppe.3 Built in the seventeenth century, the church stands near the marketplace, at present-day Piazza Garibaldi, and has a distinctive porch topped by statues of St Giuseppe and St Dionigi.4 Related sketches can be found on folios 4 verso and 75 verso (D14151 and D14289; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 3c and 74a) while for further sketches of Lake Maggiore between Luino and Baveno, including the Borromean islands, see folios 76–78 verso (D14290–D14297; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 75–78a).

Nicola Moorby
January 2013

1
Crimi 2009, p.59.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.
4
For a comparable view see ‘Veduta di Luino sul Lago Maggiore’, in Viaggio pittorico e storico ai tre laghi Maggiore, di Lugano, e di Como, 1823, reproduced online at http://iccu01e.caspur.it/ms/internetCulturale.php?id=mag_GEO0018513&teca=GeoWeb+-+Marciana, accessed January 2013.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Three Sketches on Lake Maggiore; Including One of Luino 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2013, 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-three-sketches-on-lake-maggiore-including-one-of-luino-r1142809, accessed 15 January 2025.