One of a number of similar sketches on millboard, distinct in style, however, from those also from the Turner Bequest found at the British Museum (e.g. Nos. 469, 498-500). A number of them seem to show landscapes around Rome and Naples. Though very different from earlier sketches from nature like those done on the Thames c.1807-8 they have a directness and freshness which suggests that they may also have been done out-of-doors, though with formal compositions in mind from the outset. There is no secure evidence that Turner went to Naples on his second visit to Rome but it would have been easy for him to do so and this group of sketches has usually been dated to this visit. However they could have been done on the 1819 visit; see also under No.471.