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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Route to Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner View of Mountains, Ancona; and a Sketch of a Woman 1819

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View of Mountains, Ancona; and a Sketch of a Woman’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Verso:
View of Mountains, Ancona; and a Sketch of a Woman 1819
D13860
Turner Bequest CLXXI 1 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 88 x 114 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘[?3 N]’ and ‘Yelw Yellow | [...R]’ top left, ‘Dark | [?no] Blue’ and ‘Ancona’ top centre. Also ‘[?F...]’ bottom left, ascending left-hand edge, ‘Orange Blue’ and ‘Ancona’ parallel with left-hand edge
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The written inscription beneath this rough pencil sketch of distant mountains identifies it as having been drawn on the spot at Ancona. The wobbly, uncertain lines indicate that it was almost certainly executed from a moving carriage. This part of Turner’s 1819 Italian journey was largely documented in the Venice to Ancona sketchbook (see Tate; Turner Bequest CLXXVI).
Turner has also changed the orientation of the sketchbook and used the page vertically to draw a swift figure study of a woman.

Nicola Moorby
March 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘View of Mountains, Ancona; and a Sketch of a Woman 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-view-of-mountains-ancona-and-a-sketch-of-a-woman-r1138678, accessed 27 November 2024.