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 > Pompeii, Amalfi, &c., Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inside the Theatre at Herculaneum 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inside the Theatre at Herculaneum’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 82 Verso:
Inside the Theatre at Herculaneum 1819
D15889
Turner Bequest CLXXXV 80 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject of this sketch appears to be a curving vaulted corridor with some roughly defined sculptural and architectural details. The scene almost certainly relates to Turner’s exploration of the theatre at Herculaneum which in 1819 was virtually the only part of the archaeological site where anything could be seen. The building still lay underground but could be accessed through eighteenth-century tunnels which had been cut into the volcanic matter. For a fuller description see folio 86 (D15896; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 84).

Nicola Moorby
November 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Inside the Theatre at Herculaneum 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 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-inside-the-theatre-at-herculaneum-r1138360, accessed 26 April 2024.