Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Sketches of Spoleto 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 42 Verso:
Two Sketches of Spoleto 1819
D14735
Turner Bequest CLXXVII 42 a
Turner Bequest CLXXVII 42 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 186 mm
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.522, as ‘Do. [Spoleto.]’.
1968
Giovanni Carandente, ‘Un Viaggio di Turner in Umbria’, Spoletium: Rivista di arte, storia e cultura, no.13, April 1968, p.20 note 18, reproduced p.16 fig.5, as ‘Veduta di Spoleto’.
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Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, pp. 101, 469 notes 139 and 143, 352 note 19, 409, as ‘Spoleto, from the road to Rome, with S. Pietro on the right’.
1987
Cecilia Powell, Turner in the South: Rome, Naples, Florence, New Haven and London 1987, p.34.
2008
James Hamilton, Nicola Moorby, Christopher Baker and others, Turner e l’Italia, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara 2008, pp.44, 90 note 29.
2009
James Hamilton, Nicola Moorby, Christopher Baker and others, Turner & Italy, exhibition catalogue, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 2009, pp.42, 150–1 note 29.
The Umbrian town of Spoleto lies thirteen miles from Foligno, approximately half-way on the nineteenth-century route between Ancona and Rome. The picturesque properties of the town with its impressive range of architecture and dramatic location amidst the foothills of the Apennines led him to make a large number of sketches. This page contains two distinct studies. Most of the sheet is devoted to part of a panoramic view of the town from the road to the south, see folio 43 (D14736). The building in the foreground with a Romanesque dome and lantern is a church near the southern crossing of the River Tessino. Spoleto rises on the slopes of the hill beyond. The second sketch has been drawn with the sketchbook held vertically like a notebook. The subject is the view looking down the course of the river from the valley to the north-east of the Ponte delle Torri. In the foreground is the ruined Roman bridge, the Ponte Sanguinario, whilst on the right is part of the church and monastery of San Ponziano. A similar view can be found on folio 41 verso (D14733).
Nicola Moorby
November 2008
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘Two Sketches of Spoleto 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2008, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www