Joseph Mallord William Turner The Forum of Trajan, Rome 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 36 Verso:
The Forum of Trajan, Rome 1819
D15363
Turner Bequest CLXXXII 36 a
Turner Bequest CLXXXII 36 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.537, as ‘Trajan’s Column, with Santa Maria di Loreto (on the left) and del Nome di Maria (on right)’.
1984
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Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, pp.113, 473 note 17.
1987
Cecilia Powell, Turner in the South: Rome, Naples, Florence, New Haven and London 1987, pp.40, 202 note 12.
This is a view of the Forum of Trajan in Rome looking up towards the Column of Trajan, one of Rome’s most celebrated antiquities. Turner must have been standing amidst the ruins of the Basilica Ulpia, the main hall of the Forum. Many of the remaining columns can be seen in the foreground. In the background on either side are two churches with similar looking domes: on the left the Church of Santa Maria di Loreto and on the right the Church of Santissimo Nome di Maria (Holy Name of Mary).
This vista as Turner saw it was a relatively recent development, the Forum of Trajan having only recently been excavated by the French in 1811–14. Nevertheless it quickly became an established subject for artists. Cecilia Powell notes that a view engraved by Luigi Rossini was published in Le Antichità Romane (1819–23).1 Turner, meanwhile, would certainly have been familiar with Hakewill’s drawing, ‘Rome Piazza Traiana’ 1817 (British School at Rome, Library), which adopts a similar but slightly wider viewpoint.2
Another sketch of Trajan’s column and the forum can be found in the St Peter’s sketchbook (Tate D16241; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 48).
Nicola Moorby
May 2008
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘The Forum of Trajan, Rome 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