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 > Albano, Nemi, Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Walls of the Pope's Palace, Castel Gandolfo; and Three Views of the So-Called Tomb of Pompey 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Walls of the Pope's Palace, Castel Gandolfo; and Three Views of the So-Called Tomb of Pompey’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 17 Verso:
The Walls of the Pope’s Palace, Castel Gandolfo; and Three Views of the So-Called Tomb of Pompey 1819
D15326
Turner Bequest CLXXXII 17 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 189 x 113 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
From the seventeenth century to the present day, the town of Castel Gandolfo on the shores of Lake Albano has been celebrated as the summer residence of the Pope. The sketch at the top of this page shows the view from the west looking towards the walls of the Papal Palace. A similar drawing can be found in the Gandolfo to Naples sketchbook (Tate D15557; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 2).
The ruined tower in the three remaining sketches is the so-called Tomb of Pompey or Ascanius, near the gate of Albano, see folio 2 (D15298).1 Turner has depicted it three times, drawing successively closer to the structure on each occasion from top to bottom.

Nicola Moorby
May 2008

1
See also a drawing of a similar view by Charles Joseph Lecointe, see Francesco Petrucci e Susanna Marra, Vedute dei Colli Albani e di Roma dall’album di viaggio di Charles Joseph Lecointe (1824–1886), exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Chigi, Ariccia 2006, no.26, p.44, reproduced.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘The Walls of the Pope’s Palace, Castel Gandolfo; and Three Views of the So-Called Tomb of Pompey 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2008, 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-the-walls-of-the-popes-palace-castel-gandolfo-and-three-r1132621, accessed 18 April 2024.