Joseph Mallord William Turner View of Genzano and Lake Nemi 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 24 Verso:
View of Genzano and Lake Nemi 1819
D15340
Turner Bequest CLXXXII 24 a
Turner Bequest CLXXXII 24 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Road’ centre and ‘Chesnut’ within tree bottom left of sketch
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.536, as ‘Do. [Lake of Albano (?)]’.
1975
Andrew Wilton, Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, British Museum, London 1975, p.150.
1979
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.384 no.731.
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Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, pp.194 note 102, 196 note 110, 262 note 123, 422, as ‘Lake Nemi with Genzano and Nemi, and the notes Chesnut (24a) and Cave (25)’.
1987
Cecilia Powell, Turner in the South: Rome, Naples, Florence, New Haven and London 1987, pp.[88] note 78, 89 note 81.
2000
David Hill, Joseph Mallord William Turner: Le Mont-Blanc et la Vallée d’Aoste, exhibition catalogue, Museo Archeologico Regionale, Aosta / Musée Archéologique Régional, Aosta 2000, p.295.
Cecilia Powell has identified the subject of this sketch as Genzano, one of the ‘Castelli Romani’, sixteen communes within the Alban Hills, situated on the high western shore above Lake Nemi.1 Turner’s viewpoint is a spot to the south-east of the town looking up towards the church and bell-tower of Santa Maria della Cima with the tree-lined road leading towards Ariccia in the background. A corner of the Palazzo Sforza Cesarini is just visible at the right-hand edge of the town. The town was badly damaged by bombing during the Second World War and apart from the surviving church and palace, the prospect today looks very different. The chestnut trees which Turner makes a point of annotating are a characteristic feature of the countryside in this part of Italy.
Nicola Moorby
May 2008
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘View of Genzano and Lake Nemi 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2008, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www