Joseph Mallord William Turner View of Lake Albano Looking towards Castel Gandolfo 1819
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Joseph Mallord William Turner,
View of Lake Albano Looking towards Castel Gandolfo
1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 7 Verso:
View of Lake Albano Looking towards Castel Gandolfo 1819
D15308
Turner Bequest CLXXXII 7 a
Turner Bequest CLXXXII 7 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Red’ to left of figure bottom left and ‘Fountain’ in foliage above
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Red’ to left of figure bottom left and ‘Fountain’ in foliage above
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 ‘Two sketches of Lake of Albano’.
1979
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.384 no.731.
1984
Cecilia Powell, ‘Turner and the Bandits: ‘Lake Albano’ rediscovered’, Turner Studies, Summer 1984, vol.3, no.2, p.23.
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Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, pp.194 note 102, 196 note 110, 262 note 123.
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, Aoste 2000, p.295.
2004
J.R. Piggott, ‘Salerooms Report’, in Turner Society News, no.98, December 2004, p.12 under no.2.
Turner circled Lake Albano and made sketches from several different points. This drawing shows the view from the eastern shore of the lake looking across towards the dome of the Church of San Tommaso di Villanova, Castel Gandolfo. He has also noted a small group of figures around an area of the road which he has labelled as a ‘Fountain’. Amidst the lush greenery surrounding the lake, and the deep blue of the water itself, the ‘Red’ of a woman’s dress would have made a pleasing complementary splash of colour to Turner’s artistic eye. In his later watercolour, Lake Albano circa 1828 (private collection), the red bodice of the peasant woman, or contadina, in the foreground serves the same aesthetic purpose.1 The scene is continued briefly on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 8 (D15309).
For a full discussion of Turner’s depictions of Lake Albano see folio 3 verso (D15301) and the general introduction to the sketchbook.
Nicola Moorby
May 2008
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘View of Lake Albano Looking towards Castel Gandolfo 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