Joseph Mallord William Turner View of the Bay of Pozzuoli with the Islands of Nisida and Ischia 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 57 Verso:
View of the Bay of Pozzuoli with the Islands of Nisida and Ischia 1819
D15667
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 55 a
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 55 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 122 x 197 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Bay of Baia’ top right, ‘[?Cave] by the wine filled casks’, ‘[?Vines]’, and ‘Fire’ bottom of upper sketch. Also ‘Gate of P’ bottom of sketch on centre right-hand edge and ‘Posilippo’ bottom centre
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.544, as ‘Several sketches of the “Bay of Baiæ”, from Pozzuoli. In foreground of one sketch, “Oxen dg. (dragging) the wine filled casks” and “Dung”; also sketch of the “Gate of P” (Pozzuoli)’.
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Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, p.180 note 42.
1987
Cecilia Powell, Turner in the South: Rome, Naples, Florence, New Haven and London 1987, p.79 note 35.
This page contains three on-the-spot sketches associated with Turner’s exploration of the Campi Flegrei (Phlegraean or Burning Fields) to the west of Naples. The two main studies are variant views of the same prospect looking across the Bay of Pozzuoli with the Capo di Posillipo and the island of Nisida on the left, and Cape Misenum (Capo Miseno) and the islands of Procida and Ischia on the right. Turner’s viewpoint appears to be looking south-west from the valley which lies between the Posillipo Hill and Lake Agnano (near present-day Via Caravaggio in Fuorigrotta). A further related drawing can be seen on folio 58 (D15668; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 56), and more detailed and careful versions of both vistas can be found within the Naples: Rome C. Studies sketchbook (Tate D16103 and D16105; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 15 and 17). In particular the inscription referring to ‘wine filled casks’ in the bottom left-hand corner of the upper study appears to find a parallel within the barrels and bottles included in the foreground of one of these compositions (Tate D16103; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 15). See these entries for a more detailed description of the landscape.
Also in the bottom right-hand corner of the uppermost views is a further thumbnail sketch which Turner has inscribed ‘Gate of P’. As Finberg suggested, this perhaps records the entry point of the port of Pozzuoli.1
Nicola Moorby
May 2010
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘View of the Bay of Pozzuoli with the Islands of Nisida and Ischia 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www