Joseph Mallord William Turner Vesuvius and the Sorrentine Peninsula from Via Posillipo 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
Vesuvius and the Sorrentine Peninsula from Via Posillipo
1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Vesuvius and the Sorrentine Peninsula from Via Posillipo 1819
D16106
Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 18
Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 18
Pencil and watercolour on paper, 253 x 403 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Tuffa Rock Yellow’ bottom left
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Tuffa Rock Yellow’ bottom left
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1904
National Gallery, London, various dates to at least 1904 (335).
1966
?Adelaide Festival of Arts: Special Exhibitions at the National Gallery of South Australia, National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, ?March–April 1966 (5).
1975
Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, British Museum, London, May 1975–February 1976 (72, reproduced in colour, as ‘View from Naples looking towards Vesuvius).
1978
Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Lent by the British Museum, Tate Gallery, London, January–June 1978 (no catalogue).
1981
Turner’s First Visit to Italy, 1819: Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Loaned by the British Museum, Tate Gallery, London, April–October 1981 (no catalogue).
1990
Turner’s Papers: A Study of the Manufacture, Selection and Use of his Drawing Papers 1787–1820, Tate Gallery, London, October 1990–January 1991 (51, reproduced).
1990
All’ombra del Vesuvio: Napoli nella veduta europea dal Quattrocento all’Ottocento / In the Shadow of Vesuvius: Views of Naples from Baroque to Romanticism 1631–1830, Castel Sant’Elmo, Naples, May–June 1990, Accademia Italiana delle Arti e delle Arti Applicate, London, October–November 1990 (no number).
1998
Italy in the Age of Turner: “The Garden of the World”, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, March–May 1998 (39, reproduced in colour).
2008
Turner e l’Italia/Turner and Italy, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara, November 2008–February 2009, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, March–June 2009 (44, reproduced in colour).
2009
Turner és Itália, Szépmuvészeti Múzeum, Budapest, July–October 2009 (no number, reproduced).
References
1879
Philip Gilbert Hamerton, The Life of J. M. W. Turner, R.A., London 1879, p.187.
1904
E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn (eds.), Library Edition: The Works of John Ruskin: Volume XIII: Turner: The Harbours of England; Catalogues and Notes, London 1904, no.335, pp.379, 625, as ‘Vesuvius. Beginning of a finished drawing’ and ‘Vesuvius’.
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.555, as ‘Vesuvius. Pencil and part coloured. Exhibited Drawings, No.335, N.G.’.
1920
D[ugald] S[utherland] MacColl, National Gallery, Millbank: Catalogue: Turner Collection, London 1920, p.85.
1975
Andrew Wilton, Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, British Museum, London 1975, no.72, pp.54, 56, reproduced in colour, p.55, as ‘View from Naples looking towards Vesuvius’.
1979
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, reproduced p.138 pl.150, as ‘View from Naples looking towards Vesuvius’.
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.124, 181, 182, reproduced pl.106, as ‘Vesuvius’.
1987
Cecilia Powell, Turner in the South: Rome, Naples, Florence, New Haven and London 1987, pp.50, 80 note 39, [85], reproduced p.74 colour pl.14, as ‘Vesuvius’.
1990
Peter Bower, Turner’s Papers: A Study of the Manufacture, Selection and Use of his Drawing Papers 1787–1820, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1990, pp.75, 117 reproduced no.51, as ‘Vesuvius’.
1990
Giuliano Briganti, Nicola Spinosa and Lindsay Stainton, All’ombra del Vesuvio: Napoli nella veduta europea dal Quattrocento all’Ottocento / In the Shadow of Vesuvius: Views of Naples from Baroque to Romanticism 1631–1830, exhibition catalogue, Accademia Italiana delle Arti e dell arti Applicate, London 1990, reproduced in colour, p.94, as ‘Vesuvius’.
1995
Cecilia Powell, ‘Turner’s Sketches: Purpose and Practice’, in Joyce H. Townsend (ed.), Turner’s Painting Techniques: In Context: 1995, London 1995, p.56, reproduced fig.2, as ‘Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples’.
1998
Cecilia Powell, Italy in the Age of Turner: “The Garden of the World”, exhibition catalogue, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London 1998, p.73, no.39, reproduced in colour, as ‘Vesuvius’.
2000
Andrea Gatti, Inglesi a Napoli nel Viceregno Austriaco: Lord Addison, Lord Shaftsebury, George Berkely, Naples 2000, reproduced fig.XIV, p.82, and in colour on the cover, as ‘Veduta di Napoli con Vesuvio’.
2001
Cecilia Powell, ‘Vesuvius’ in Evelyn Joll, Martin Butlin and Luke Herrmann (eds.), The Oxford Companion to J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 2001, p.364.
2003
Barry Venning, Turner, Art & Ideas, London 2003, pp.156, reproduced in colour p.161, fig.94, as ‘View of Naples with Vesuvius in the Distance’.
2008
James Hamilton, Nicola Moorby, Christopher Baker and others, Turner e l’Italia, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara 2008, no.44, pp.48, [179], 185, reproduced in colour as ‘Napoli. Il Vesuvio’.
2009
James Hamilton, Nicola Moorby, Christopher Baker and others, Turner & Italy, exhibition catalogue, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 2009, p.143, as ‘Naples: Vesuvius’ [incorrectly as from the ‘Rome: Colour Studies’ sketchbook].
2009
Christopher Baker and James Hamilton, Turner és Itália, exhibition catalogue, Szépmuvészeti Múzeum, Budapest 2009, p.53, reproduced in colour, pp.[2] (detail), p.46, fig.46.
Turner’s viewpoint for this partially coloured study of Vesuvius is the Via Posillipo, a new road commissioned in 1812 by the King of Naples, Joachim Murat, in order to make the area west of the city accessible to travellers. The road ran the length of the Posillipo coast between Mergellina and the Capo di Posillipo, at times skirting and stretching over the steep cliffs and bays. In this view a gully amidst the rocky tufa landscape has been bridged by an arched viaduct, flanked on either side by some of the historic houses and villas which characterise this part of the coastline. The vista looks east across the Bay of Naples towards Vesuvius with its smoking crater and the Sorrentine peninsula on the right. Visible along the shore at the foot of the volcano is the city of Portici. Similar views from Posillipo can be seen on folio 8 (D16095), as well as in the Gandolfo to Naples sketchbook (Tate D15669; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 56a) and the Naples, Paestum, Rome sketchbook (Tate D16072; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 82a).
The study has long been admired for the limpid watercolour animating the top half of the composition. John Ruskin, who believed it to be the ‘beginning of a finished drawing’,1 described it as having the ‘divinest fresh colour’,2 whilst Cecilia Powell defined it as ‘miraculous colour over functional pencil’.3 The artist has tested his hues on the left-hand side of the paper before applying them over the pencil underdrawing. For a general discussion of Turner’s use of watercolour in Naples, see the introduction to the sketchbook.
Technical notes:
Long detached from the Naples, Rome C. Studies sketchbook, this sheet was perhaps once folio 18 (see the concordance in the introduction).
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions by unknown hands in pencil ‘18’ circed above centre, and ‘CLXXXVII . 18’ bottom right; stamped in black ‘CLXXXVII. 18’ below Turner Bequest monogram centre left.
Nicola Moorby
November 2010
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘Vesuvius and the Sorrentine Peninsula from Via Posillipo 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www