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

As identified by the geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot, this study records the dramatic topography of Ronciglione, a town bordering Lake Vico in the Viterbo province.1 The artist’s low viewpoint is from a ravine, looking north-west towards the steep rock on which the Church of Santa Maria della Provvidenza is perched. Its prominent Romanesque belltower dominates the skyline. Further buildings are roughly outlined to the left, terminating to the far left with the early seventeenth-century Porta Romana, the main gateway permitting access from the south. In the top-left corner is a separate outline of buildings, possibly a continuation of the same vista. Beneath, the contours of the ravine are roughly indicated. This study is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation.

This is one of almost a dozen works in the present sketchbook depicting Ronciglione; see under folio 8 recto (D21779) for an extended commentary and a list of relevant works.