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 Sketches of the Villa Adriana, Tivoli: including the Greek Library from the Hall of the Libraries 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sketches of the Villa Adriana, Tivoli: including the Greek Library from the Hall of the Libraries’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 36 Recto:
Sketches of the Villa Adriana, Tivoli: including the Greek Library from the Hall of the Libraries 1819
D14992
Turner Bequest CLXXIX 36
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 186 mm
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘36’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXIX 36’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Part of Turner’s trip to Tivoli in 1819 included a detour to the Villa Adriana (Hadrian’s Villa), an elaborate palace and garden complex approximately one mile south-west of the town. Built during the second century for the Roman Emperor Hadrian, it was designed as an imperial summer retreat filled with architectural recreations of celebrated buildings of the world. Turner used the time that was available to him to make several swift studies of the key buildings of interest, see folio 32 verso (D14985). As Cecilia Powell first identified, the drawing on the left-hand side of the page represents a view of the Greek Library (Biblioteca Greca, actually a guest hall) from the Hall or Terrace of the Libraries. The subject of the two sketches parallel with the right-hand edge of the sheet are currently unidentified, although they probably also depict views within the Villa Adriana.

Nicola Moorby
January 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Sketches of the Villa Adriana, Tivoli: including the Greek Library from the Hall of the Libraries 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-sketches-of-the-villa-adriana-tivoli-including-the-greek-r1137624, accessed 25 April 2024.