Joseph Mallord William Turner View across the Plain to the East of Narni, from near the Porta della Fiera 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 61 Recto:
View across the Plain to the East of Narni, from near the Porta della Fiera 1819
D14771
Turner Bequest CLXXVII 61
Turner Bequest CLXXVII 61
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 186 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘61’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVII 61’ bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘61’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVII 61’ bottom right
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 ‘Narni’.
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Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, pp. 101, 469 note 143.
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 town of Narni occupies the crest of a hill approximately seven miles south-west of Terni, and fifty miles north of Rome. As was often the case during Turner’s travels, his mode of travelling did not give him much opportunity to stop and explore the centre of the town. The carriage simply followed a predetermined course in an anti-clockwise direction from east to south-west around the walled perimeter. Consequently Turner’s sketches of Narni only relate to views or subjects visible from the road such as the edges of the town and the Bridge of Augustus in the gorge below.
This sketch depicts a view from a point just outside the walls at the northern tip of the town, near the Porta Pollela, looking up towards the Porta della Fiera. The panorama, which continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 60 verso (D14770), looks east across the valley with the River Nera snaking across the plain and the hills surrounding Terni beyond. Today the picturesque beauty of the view has been completely transformed by the industrialisation of the area around the new town of Narni Scalo. The road from the Porta Pollela led down towards Narni’s most famous landmark, the Roman Bridge of Augustus, see folio 61 verso (D14772). A related sketch can be found on folio 63 verso (D14776).
Nicola Moorby
November 2008
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘View across the Plain to the East of Narni, from near the Porta della Fiera 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