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 Two Sketches by Turner of the Walls at Macerata; and Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Sketches by Turner of the Walls at Macerata; and Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 7 Recto:
Two Sketches by Turner of the Walls at Macerata; and Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy 1819
D13871
Turner Bequest CLXXI 7
Pencil on white wove paper, 88 x 114 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Macerata’ bottom of sketches
Inscribed by James Hakewill in black ink (see main catalogue entry), bottom, inverted
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘7’ top left, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CLXXI 7’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains two sketches of the walls of Macerata, a hill town in the Marche region which Turner passed en route between Ancona and Rome. The views have been drawn from the west side of the town (on present-day Viale Puccinotti) looking towards the main gate, which as John Chetwode Eustace described, is ‘a sort of modern triumphal arch not remarkable either for materials or for proportion’.1 A sketch of the same view can be found in the Ancona to Rome sketchbook (Tate D14690; Turner Bequest CLXXVII 19a).
Also on the sheet are notes representing advice to Turner on travelling in Italy in preparation for the artist’s first tour of the country in 1819. The author of the inscription is James Hakewill (1778–1843), with whom Turner collaborated on the engraved print project, Picturesque Tour of Italy, published 1820 (see the introduction to the sketchbook). The text was first transcribed by Finberg,2 and is repeated here with minor variations:
fixd up price with him, you will | be saved the trouble of further | altercation; but remember not to | commence inmate in any house | without first settling this necessary | business – .
The context for the inscription is a recommendation concerning a good way to find reasonable accommodation in Genoa, see folio 6 (D13869). Hakewill’s notes continue on folio 7 verso (D13872).

Nicola Moorby
March 2010

1
John Chetwode Eustace, A Classical Tour Through Italy, London 1815, vol.I, p.306.
2
Finberg 1909, p.497.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Two Sketches by Turner of the Walls at Macerata; and Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy 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-two-sketches-by-turner-of-the-walls-at-macerata-and-notes-by-r1138689, accessed 27 November 2024.