'Sketches Inside the Theatre at Herculaneum', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Sketches Inside the Theatre at Herculaneum

From Pompeii, Amalfi, &c., Sketchbook

Turner Bequest CLXXXV

Date 1819

MediumGraphite on paper

Dimensionssupport: 113 x 189 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Reference

D15898

Turner Bequest CLXXXV 85

View this artwork by appointment, at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms

Turner's sketchbooks

View this artwork in the Pompeii, Amalfi, &c., Sketchbook

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Folio 87 Recto:

Sketches Inside the Theatre at Herculaneum 1819

D15898
Turner Bequest CLXXXV 85

Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm

Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Corridor’ above sketch at bottom
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘278’ top right, ascending right-hand edge and ‘85’ top left, ascending left-hand edge
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXV 85’ top right, ascending right-hand edge

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

References

As Turner’s inscription indicates, the sketches on this page represent views within the eighteenth-century corridors which led inside the theatre at Herculaneum, the coastal town destroyed by the same eruption that devastated Pompeii in AD 79. In 1819, very little of the site had been uncovered and the rough nature of Turner’s studies reflect the fact that they were drawn in poorly lit, subterranean surroundings.1 For a fuller description of Herculaneum and the theatre see folio 86 (D15896; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 84).

Nicola Moorby
November 2010

Powell 1984, p.187, and Powell 1987, pp.82–3.

Read this catalogue entry in full

This catalogue entry is part of: David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, December 2012.