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 Four Sketches of Buildings in a Landscape, and one of Distant Mountains ?near Rome 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Four Sketches of Buildings in a Landscape, and one of Distant Mountains ?near Rome’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 60 Recto:
Four Sketches of Buildings in a Landscape, and one of Distant Mountains ?near Rome 1819
D15409
Turner Bequest CLXXXII 59
Pencil on white wove paper, 189 x 113 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘59’ top left, ascending left-hand edge and ‘301’ top right, ascending right-hand edge
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXII 59’ top right, ascending right-hand edge
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Cecilia Powell suggests, the rough and jagged lines of these five sketches suggest that they might have been drawn from a moving vehicle.1 Turner often drew swift impressions of the horizon in this way as he travelled from place to place. The locations here remain unidentified although they may represent views along the Aurelian Walls in Rome. There is also an inverted sketch at the bottom of the page which depicts a line of distant mountains.

Nicola Moorby
May 2008

1
Powell 1984, p.472 note 11.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Four Sketches of Buildings in a Landscape, and one of Distant Mountains ?near 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.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-four-sketches-of-buildings-in-a-landscape-and-one-of-distant-r1132704, accessed 24 April 2024.