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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Italianate Landscapes and Classical ... > Colour Studies of Idealised Italianate ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner An Idealised Italianate Landscape with Trees, a Road and a Distant Tower, Perhaps by the Sea c.1828-9

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘An Idealised Italianate Landscape with Trees, a Road and a Distant Tower, Perhaps by the Sea’ c.1828-9
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
An Idealised Italianate Landscape with Trees, a Road and a Distant Tower, Perhaps by the Sea c.1828–9
D25175
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 53
Watercolour on white wove paper, 357 x 571 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below centre
Inscribed in red ink ‘53’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 53’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This composition centres on a tower high in the distance, framed by trees in the foreground beside a road. The muted blue of the level horizon suggests the sea. It may be fortuitous that the prominence of the wide, swiftly receding road in this generic scene evokes Turner’s views of Bonneville and the Alps, themselves apparently influenced by the painting of A Roman Road (Dulwich Picture Gallery, London) then thought to be an original by Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), which had made a lasting impression (see under Tate D04901; Turner Bequest LXXX H).
Compare several other near-monochrome ‘colour beginnings’ with dark, isolated trees (Tate D25167, D25168, D25208 and D25275; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 45, 46, 86, 153). The first three of these are on paper made in 1828, while the composition of D25168 has been linked to the oil painting The Loretto Necklace, painted soon after Turner’s return from his second Italian tour of 1828–9 (Tate N00509).1 He had also been working on watercolours of Italian subjects shortly before the trip.2
1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.185 no.331, pl.334.
2
See Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.384 nos.726, 730, 731; also Shanes 1997, p.29
Technical notes:
The mottled blue marks below the centre appear to be adventitious, and may be offsets from another sheet.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘CCLXIII.43’ bottom right; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCLXIII – 53’ bottom right.

Matthew Imms
August 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘An Idealised Italianate Landscape with Trees, a Road and a Distant Tower, Perhaps by the Sea c.1828–9 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-an-idealised-italianate-landscape-with-trees-a-road-and-a-r1185711, accessed 17 July 2024.