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

The geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot has identified Turin as the subject of this panoramic view, which the artist executed with the sketchbook turned horizontally.1 Turner arrived in the city from Milan in around mid-January 1829, before continuing westwards towards the Franco-Italian Alps.

As noted by Courtot, Turner’s vantage point for this study was from the grand terraces of the Villa della Regina, a seventeenth-century hilltop palace to the east of the city.2 Facing north-west, he sketched the Church of Santa Maria del Monte atop the Monte dei Cappuccini hill to the left. At the foot of the slopes, towards the centre right, is the Church of Gran Madre di Dio, a Neoclassical church constructed between 1818 and 1831. Turner’s rough sketch appears to show the incomplete building prior to the installation of its domed roof.3 The River Po winds into the distance, crossed by the five-arched Ponte Vittorio Emanuele I. On the horizon are the Alps.

This view possibly connects to form an extended panorama with the study on folio 14 recto opposite (D21689); if so, it is a relatively unusual case of Turner distributing a panorama across two opposite pages, each turned horizontally.

This is one of thirteen works depicting Turin dispersed throughout the sketchbook: see under folio 7 recto (D21676) for a full list. Turner had previously visited this city in 1819 during the outward leg of his first Italian tour: for further commentary and a list of relevant works, see Nicola Moorby’s entry for the Turin, Como, Lugarno, Maggiore sketchbook in the present catalogue (Tate D14166; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 11).