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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Small Roman Colour Studies Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Statue of the Dea Roma in the gardens of the Villa Medici, Rome 1819

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Statue of the Dea Roma in the gardens of the Villa Medici, Rome’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 12 Verso:
Statue of the Dea Roma in the gardens of the Villa Medici, Rome 1819
D16410
Turner Bequest CXC 12 a
Pencil and grey watercolour wash on white wove paper, 130 x 255 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘[?Light] [?P...]’ within sketch underneath statue
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject of this drawing is a large statue of the Dea Roma (the personification of Rome as a goddess) in the gardens of the Villa Medici.1 In 1822, this sculpture was moved to its current position behind the Dauphin Fountain at the end of the grand allée beside the outer wall of the Villa Medici, parallel with the public walkway in the Borghese park from the Pincio.2 A further sketch can be seen in the St Peter’s sketchbook (Tate D16274; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 65). In the bottom right-hand corner there is a figure of a woman who appears to be washing in a fountain.
Like many drawings within this sketchbook, the composition has been executed over a washed grey background and Turner has created areas of pale highlights by rubbing or lifting through to the white paper beneath.

Nicola Moorby
May 2009

1
See Hans Naef, Ingres in Rome, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington 1971, no.12 p.10, reproduced p.12, and photograph in Marco Bussagli, ‘The Rome of the Saints: the Baroque’ in Marco Bussagli (ed.), Rome: Art & Architecture, Cologne 1999, p.524.
2
Bernard Toulier, La Villa Médicis, vol.I, Rome 1989, p.80 under no.54.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Statue of the Dea Roma in the gardens of the Villa Medici, Rome 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-statue-of-the-dea-roma-in-the-gardens-of-the-villa-medici-r1132509, accessed 25 April 2024.