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

This page features two extremely rough studies, which Turner executed shortly after his departure from Siena, as he headed south towards Radicofani, Aquapendente and Orvieto. For much of this journey, he followed part of the Via Francigena, a medieval pilgrimage route leading towards Rome.1

The upper sketch shows a fortified building in a hilly landscape. Turner’s rough inscription across the top likely reads ‘Ponte Tressa’, referring to Ponte a Tressa, a small village south-east of Siena. Nearby is the Grancia di Cuna, a fortified red-brick granary built during the fourteenth century.2 This is possibly the building with corbels and arches depicted in the upper sketch. Beneath is a roughly sketched tower with the inscription ‘Monteroni’, a neighbouring village south-east of Ponte a Tressa. The cursory appearance of both studies suggests Turner was sketching from a moving carriage. Consistent with this interpretation are the scrawled and increasingly illegible inscriptions towards the bottom, one of which appears to read ‘[?W for] ½ mile’.