J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

This page contains three sketches, all relating to the start of Turner’s Italian journey in 1819, through the Val di Susa between Susa and Turin. In this instance the artist has drawn views looking in opposite directions from the same point on the road.

The two uppermost views show the distant castle of Avigliana, a town approximately twenty-two miles east of the French-Italian border. Situated on a spur of land to the west of the town, the castello was destroyed by the French during the seventeenth century. Turner has drawn the ruins from the west, looking east in the direction of travel towards Turin. Similar views can be seen on folio 8 verso (D14159; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 7a).

As Federico Crimi first identified, the sketch at the bottom of the page depicts the Sacra di San Michele, an ancient abbey situated in the Val di Susa.1 Founded during the tenth century, the abbey stands on Mount Pirchiriano, near Avigliana and, although at the time of Turner’s 1819 tour of Italy it was an abandoned ruin, it was nonetheless a distinctive landmark in this part of the Susa Valley. Turner made several drawings of it from various viewpoints, see folios 7–9 (D14156–D14160; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 6–8).