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

With the page turned horizontally, the top half is taken up with at least three bands of mountainous profiles, with trees and perhaps distant buildings below. Over half of the pages in this book comprise relatively slight sketches from Turner’s homeward route north through the valleys of the Alps via Trento, Bolzano (Bozen) and Innsbruck. As set out in the Introduction, although his overall itinerary is clear from many identified subjects, they were are not drawn in a single sequence, making the scenes between them difficult to place.

The skylines here may have been observed from the coastal plain, as Turner travelled on the first stage of his journey from Venice. The view of a tower with what seems to be a cupola at the bottom left may show an aspect of the Torre Civica at Castelfranco Veneto, seen twice among other views on the recto (D31607); there are related sketches on folio 5 verso (D31606), under which the town’s setting is discussed. Separated by a vertical pencil line beside it, the other subject is hastily labelled with what could be an attempt at ‘Villarazzo’, a parish just outside Castelfranco on the road to Bassano del Grappa (see folio 8 recto; D31611), and may be a fleeting impression of the campanile of the church of San Sebastiano there.