Joseph Mallord William Turner View in the Grounds of Villa Borghese, Rome 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 23 Recto:
View in the Grounds of Villa Borghese, Rome 1819
D16527
Turner Bequest CXCI 23
Turner Bequest CXCI 23
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Stamped in black ‘CXCI 23’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.568, as ‘Trees, with distant buildings and hills’.
1984
Cecilia Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, p.429, as ‘Ditto [View in the grounds of Villa Borghese]’.
Cecilia Powell has identified this sketch as a view in the grounds of the Villa Borghese, a large area of parkland north of central Rome, built during the early seventeenth century for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V.1 Flaminio Ponzio (circa 1560–1613), the architect who designed the Casino Borghese, also laid out the grounds including a series of formal gardens, an area of natural parkland, an aviary (the Uccelliera), and a scattering of statues, fountains and ancient monuments. The park was further transformed during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by the building of a wooded lake garden, landscaped in the English manner with neo-classical features, partly designed by the British artist, Jacob More (circa 1740–1793).2 During the nineteenth century the gardens were open to the public free of charge and were a popular place for Romans and tourists alike to promenade in their leisure time.3
Turner made a number of quick studies of the gardens with the various architectural features seen through the trees, see for example the St Peter’s sketchbook (Tate D16267–D16270; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 61–63). Other sketches of the grounds can be found on folios 21–22 verso (D16523–D16526).
Nicola Moorby
February 2009
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘View in the Grounds of Villa Borghese, Rome 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www