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 > Tivoli to Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Gran Loggia of the Villa d'Este, Tivoli 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Gran Loggia of the Villa d'Este, Tivoli’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 10 Verso:
The Gran Loggia of the Villa d’Este, Tivoli 1819
D14949
Turner Bequest CLXXIX 10 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 186 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The Tivoli and Rome sketchbook contains several studies of the Villa d’Este, a sixteenth-century villa and formal Renaissance garden built for Cardinal Ippolito d’Este (1509–1572), the son of Lucrezia Borgia. This sketch shows the Gran Loggia, an architectural feature in the form of a triumphal arch which stands perpendicular to the western end of the main casino. Built by the Neapolitan architect, Pirro Ligorio, the loggia encloses one side of a terrace overlooking the gardens whilst also providing a platform for a panoramic vista towards Rome. The composition continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 11 (D14950). As a young man, Turner had made a watercolour copy of a view of the loggia by another artist, see Dr Monro’s Album of Italian Views (Tate D36457; Turner Bequest CCCLXXIII 44).
For a full discussion of Turner’s sketches of the Villa d’Este see folio 5 verso (D14942).

Nicola Moorby
January 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘The Gran Loggia of the Villa d’Este, Tivoli 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2010, 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-gran-loggia-of-the-villa-deste-tivoli-r1137581, accessed 18 April 2024.