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 St Peter's, Rome from Bernini's Colonnade 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘St Peter's, Rome from Bernini's Colonnade’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 84 Verso:
St Peter’s, Rome from Bernini’s Colonnade 1819
D16310
Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 83 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 189 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s viewpoint for this sketch is the end of the northern (right) arm of the two colonnades built by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) to frame the elliptical piazza in front of the Basilica of St Peter’s. The artist is standing within the colonnade looking out so that his view is partially obscured by the innermost row of Tuscan columns. In the background beyond he has outlined St Peter’s and drawn with more detail the adjacent façade of the Vatican loggia and the granite fountain by Carlo Maderno. A more complex composition from a different viewpoint can also be found in the Rome Colour Studies sketchbook (see Tate D16330; Turner Bequest CLXXXIX 4).

Nicola Moorby
January 2009

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘St Peter’s, Rome from Bernini’s Colonnade 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-st-peters-rome-from-berninis-colonnade-r1139822, accessed 26 April 2024.