'Sketches of the Ruins at Herculaneum, Including an Arched Doorway', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Sketches of the Ruins at Herculaneum, Including an Arched Doorway

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

D15887

Turner Bequest CLXXXV 79

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 81 Recto:

Sketches of the Ruins at Herculaneum, Including an Arched Doorway 1819

D15887
Turner Bequest CLXXXV 79

Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm

Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘278’ top right, ascending right-hand edge and ‘79’ top left, ascending left-hand edge
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXV 79’ top right, ascending right-hand edge

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

References

The sketches on this page relate to Turner’s exploration of the archaeological remains at Herculaneum.1 Like all of his studies of the site, the drawings are very rough and appear to have been executed in near-darkness. The details in the top half of the page are too schematic to be identified but clearly visible in the lower half is an arched doorway flanked by pilasters with a staircase beyond.

For a fuller description of Herculaneum and Turner’s on-the-spot sketches see folio 86 (D15896; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 84).

See Cecilia Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, p.187, and Cecilia Powell, Turner in the South: Rome, Naples, Florence, New Haven and London 1987, pp.82–3.

Verso:
Blank

Nicola Moorby
November 2010

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.