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

The geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot has identified Turin as the subject of this panoramic study.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 was from the grand terraces of the Villa della Regina, a seventeenth-century hilltop palace to the east of the city, which he also sketched on the verso (D21691).2 Facing north-west, he surveyed the domes and towers of the city’s historic centre, including the Palazzo Reale. In the middle distance is the River Po and one of its tributaries, the Dora Riparia. The Italian-Swiss Alps lie on the horizon.

This view possibly connects to form an extended panorama with the study on folio 13 verso opposite (D21688); 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 the 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).