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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Second Italian Tour 1828-9 > Marseilles to Genoa Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Distant View of Monaco and La Turbie, from the North-West 1828

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Distant View of Monaco and La Turbie, from the North-West’ 1828
Folio 20 Verso:
Distant View of Monaco and La Turbie, from the North-West 1828
D21172
Turner Bequest CCXXXI 20a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 174 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The main sketch, with the page turned horizontally, represents a distant view of Monaco beyond La Turbie from the road to the north-west.1 The vista makes apparent the dramatic ‘perched’ situation of the ‘village perchée’ of La Turbie on the right, dominated by the ruins of the Roman monument known as the ‘Trophée des Alpes’; see also folio 19 verso and the recto of this leaf (D21170, D21171). Meanwhile, visible in the low gap to the left of the landscape is the Rocher de Monaco (Rock of Monaco) with the sea beyond. Smaller, schematic sketches of the Rocher can also be seen in the top-left and bottom-right corners of the page.2

Nicola Moorby
March 2017

Revised by Hannah Kaspar
November 2024

1
Guillaud, Alfrey, Wilton and others 1981, p.286.
2
See Roland Courtot, ‘Les Carnets de William Turner: Recherches d’identification et de localisation des dessins’, unpublished research notes, Université de Provence à Aix, April 2008, p.4, as ‘La Turbie’ (shared with former Tate cataloguer Nicola Moorby in email correspondence at that date).

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Distant View of Monaco and La Turbie, from the North-West 1828’, catalogue entry, March 2017, revised by Hannah Kaspar, November 2024, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2025, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/distant-view-of-monaco-and-la-turbie-from-the-north-west-r1209850, accessed 01 May 2025.