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 View of Rome from the Janiculum, with the Pyramid of Caius Cestius 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View of Rome from the Janiculum, with the Pyramid of Caius Cestius’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 77 Verso:
View of Rome from the Janiculum, with the Pyramid of Caius Cestius 1819
D15444
Turner Bequest CLXXXII 76 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Like many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century visitors to Rome, part of Turner’s exploration of the city included the panoramic views seen from certain elevated vantage points. One of the most famous of these was the Janiculum Hill (or Gianicolo), a ridge of high ground to the west of the River Tiber which offered sweeping vistas across the historical centre of the capital. The details of this prospect are very rough but the recognisable forms of the Pyramid of Caius Cestius and the Porta San Paolo with distant mountains suggests that his viewpoint here is the Janiculum looking south. The composition continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 78 (D15445; Turner Bequest CLXXXII 77).
For further sketches from the Janiculum see folio 39 verso-40 (D15369–D15370).

Nicola Moorby
May 2008

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘View of Rome from the Janiculum, with the Pyramid of Caius Cestius 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-view-of-rome-from-the-janiculum-with-the-pyramid-of-caius-r1132739, accessed 26 April 2024.