Joseph Mallord William Turner

Aurelian Walls, Rome, from Villa Borghese

1819

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Rome and Florence Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 113 × 189 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D16522
Turner Bequest CXCI 20

Catalogue entry

Thomas Ashby identified the subject of this sketch as the walls of Rome from Villa Borghese.1 Turner’s viewpoint appears to be from one of the upper storeys of the seventeenth-century villa (present-day Museo Borghese), and part of the building itself appears on the far left-hand side of the composition. The study looks south-east across the formal gardens towards a section of the Aurelian walls between Porta Pinciana and Porta Salaria, with the Alban Hills in the far distance beyond.
Sketches by Turner of works of art in the Borghese collection can be found in the Remarks (Italy) sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CXCIII).
1
Thomas Ashby, unpublished notes, Turner Bequest Archive, Tate.
Verso:
Blank

Nicola Moorby
November 2010

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