Joseph Mallord William Turner

For Turner’s visit to Aosta in 1802 see Introduction to the sketchbook, and notes to D04501; Turner Bequest LXXIV 9.

Turner’s label for this drawing does not seem to have survived but its wording, ‘le Arc de Triumph, Ville de Aoust’, was preserved by John Ruskin. The drawing is one of two of the Arch of Augustus from this sketchbook, the other being a frontal view (D04501; Turner Bequest LXXIV 9). Here, Turner looks past the Roman arch towards the wooded slopes at the foot of Mount Emilius to the south of the city. The building on the right, with tiled roof and sun blinds, appears in both drawings. Together with a more panoramic view of the city from near the Cimitero Storico di Sant’Orso, also from this sketchbook (D05403; Turner Bequest LXXIV 11), the present drawing must have helped to inform the watercolour vignette of Aosta that Turner made for Samuel Roger’s s poem Italy (1830), where it was engraved by Henry le Keux; the watercolour is Tate D27662; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 145. In the vignette, Turner added walls to each side of the Arch of Augustus. However, the 1802 drawings must have confirmed his memory that the capitals of the arch were Corinthian, not Doric as rendered in early proofs of the print. In notes on the second of these, Turner corrected the error.1

In his 1992 book, David Hill compares this drawing with a photograph of his own, taken from the same position.2

Verso:

Blank, inscribed perhaps by a later hand in pencil ‘6’