'Studies of Sculptural Fragments from the Vatican Museums, Including the Grave Altar of Attia Agele', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Studies of Sculptural Fragments from the Vatican Museums, Including the Grave Altar of Attia Agele

From Vatican Fragments Sketchbook

Turner Bequest CLXXX

Date 1819

MediumGraphite on paper

Dimensionssupport: 101 x 161 mm

Collection

Tate

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

Reference

D15162

Turner Bequest CLXXX 30

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

Turner's sketchbooks

View this artwork in the Vatican Fragments Sketchbook

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Folio 31 Recto:

Studies of Sculptural Fragments from the Vatican Museums, Including the Grave Altar of Attia Agele 1819

D15162
Turner Bequest CLXXX 30

Pencil on white wove paper 101 x 161 mm

Inscribed by the artist in pencil (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘30’, bottom left, descending left-hand edge
Stamped in black ‘CLXXX 30’ bottom left, descending left-hand edge

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

References

During his 1819 stay in Rome, one of Turner’s most extensive sketching campaigns was the large number of pencil studies made from the sculpture collections of the Vatican Museums (for a general discussion, see the introduction to the sketchbook). This page contains two sketches of funerary monuments from the Museo Chiaramonti. The studies are numbered from left to right:

a.
Cecilia Powell has identified the sketch on the left-hand side of the page as a grave altar in the Museo Chiaramonti.1 The object is inscribed with the Latin text ‘DIS | MANIBVS | SACRVM’, a common text on Roman funerary monuments which translates as ‘Sacred to the spirits of the departed’.
b.
Powell has further identified the sketch on the right-hand side of the page as the grave altar of Attia Agele, also in the Museo Chiaramonti.2 The monument is inscribed with the Latin text ‘DIIS MANIBVS | ATTIAE.AGELE’.

Nicola Moorby
November 2009

Powell 1984, p.414; see Walther Amelung, Die Sculpturen des Vaticanischen Museums, Berlin 1903–8, vol.I, ‘Museo Chiaramonti I Seite 309–560’, no.198, pp.447–8, reproduced pl.46, bottom centre.

Powell 1984, p.414; see Amelung 1903–8, vol.I, no.322F, pp.523–4, reproduced pl.54, bottom left.

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.