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

The town of Avigliana in the Val di Susa, approximately thirteen miles west of Turin, is noted for its picturesque setting beside two crater lakes, the Lago Grande (Great Lake) and Lago Piccolo (Small Lake). This page contains two panoramic sketches of one, or both of the lakes, and the hills and mountains surrounding them. A similar view can be found on folio 11 (D14164; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 10). The Avigliana lakes gave Turner a foretaste of the type of landscape scenery to be found in the Alban hills to the south of Rome, at Lakes Albano and Nemi, which he would explore in greater detail at a later point in his Italian travels (see the Albano, Nemi, Rome sketchbook, Tate, Turner Bequest CLXXXII).