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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Monro School c.1794-8 > Collaborations with Thomas Girtin for Dr ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin Naples: A Convent with Vesuvius in the Distance c.1796-7

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin, ‘Naples: A Convent with Vesuvius in the Distance’ c.1796-7
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Thomas Girtin 1775–1802
Naples: A Convent with Vesuvius in the Distance c.1796–7
D36541
Turner Bequest CCCLXXV 20
Pencil and grey and grey-blue wash on white wove paper, 182 x 488 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXXV – 20’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Provenance:
Probably commissioned by Dr Thomas Monro
Monro’s posthumous sale, Christie’s, London, 26–28 June and 1–2 July 1833 (day and lot number not known)
Bought by or on behalf of Turner
The pencil work is by Girtin. This was copied from a sketch by John Robert Cozens (1752–1797) in Beckford Sketchbook V, pp.2 verso–3 recto, inscribed ‘Convent at Naples’ and dated ‘Novr. 17. 1782’ (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, D1975.8.2/3).1 C.F. Bell noted that ‘The convent in this sketch has been wrongly identified as Santa Maria della Stella.’
1
Bell and Girtin 1935, p.67 under no.320; Charles Nugent, British Watercolours in the Whitworth Art Gallery, the University of Manchester: A Summary Catalogue of Drawings and Watercolours by Artists Born before 1880, London and Manchester 2003, p.99, reproduced.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed by Thomas Girtin in pencil ‘Convent at Naples | Snow on the Top of Vesuvius’; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram. The inscription is copied by Girtin from one on Cozens’s sketch.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Naples: A Convent with Vesuvius in the Distance c.1796–7 by Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin’, catalogue entry, April 2012, 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-thomas-girtin-naples-a-convent-with-vesuvius-in-the-distance-r1141285, accessed 21 November 2024.