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 > St Peter's Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Studies of Ornamental Details from Ruins in the Roman Forum 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Studies of Ornamental Details from Ruins in the Roman Forum’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 59 Verso:
Studies of Ornamental Details from Ruins in the Roman Forum 1819
D16262
Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 58 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘18 Feet’ and ‘twice as large’ and ‘[?Death]’ and ‘4 [...]’ amongst sketches of architectural details
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The ornamental and architectural details on this page appear to relate to various sections of ruined buildings in the Roman Forum. Cecilia Powell has linked them to Turner’s depiction of the ground-level masonry in front of the Basilica of Constantine in his large oil painting, Forum Romanum, for Mr Soane’s Museum exhibited 1826 (Tate N00504).1 In particular the sections of entablature with egg and dart detailing and the corbels decorated with bas-relief figures correspond to large fragments lying in the right-hand foreground of the picture. Other drawings on the page seem to relate to different monuments in the Forum, for example the Corinthian capital in the bottom right-hand corner which may be part of the Temple of Castor and Pollux or the Arch of Titus. Further sketches can be found on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 60 (D16263; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 59).

Nicola Moorby
January 2009

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, no.233; Powell 1984, p.255 and Powell 1987, p.122 note 64.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Studies of Ornamental Details from Ruins in the Roman Forum 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2009, 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-studies-of-ornamental-details-from-ruins-in-the-roman-forum-r1139774, accessed 20 April 2024.