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 > Florence to Orvieto Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Fortified Hilltop Town in Tuscany 1828

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Fortified Hilltop Town in Tuscany’ 1828
Folio 9 Recto:
A Fortified Hilltop Town in Tuscany 1828
D21604
Turner Bequest CCXXXIV 9
Pencil on paper, 104 x 148 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘[?Nebir]’ above centre left
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXIV – 9’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner made this slight study of a fortified hilltop town in a Tuscan landscape. Barring the bridge in the bottom-right corner, there are few distinctive features to identify the landscape, although Turner was likely sketching in the vicinity of Poggibonsi and Siena. The meaning of his inscription is also difficult to decipher; it was tentatively interpreted in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest as ‘Nebir’.1

Hannah Kaspar
November 2024

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.718.

How to cite

Hannah Kaspar, ‘A Fortified Hilltop Town in Tuscany 1828’, catalogue entry, 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/a-fortified-hilltop-town-in-tuscany-r1210145, accessed 15 April 2025.