Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin

A Capriccio with Classical Ruins and Figures

c.1794–8

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

License this image

In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artists
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Thomas Girtin 1775–1802
Part of
Album of Copies of Swiss and Italian Views for Dr Thomas Monro
Medium
Watercolour on paper
Dimensions
None
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D36506
Turner Bequest CCCLXXIV 27 b

Catalogue entry

The work is mounted with the album page turned vertically, on the same sheet as D36505 (Turner Bequest CCCLXXIV 27 a). Finberg states1 that this is a copy after Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691–1765), without citing a source. It is also reminiscent of the classical fantasies of Charles-Louis Clérisseau (1721–1820). Thomas Girtin copied Clérisseau for John Henderson (1764–1843); an example from Henderson’s collection showing the Temple of Concord, Rome is in the British Museum, London (1878–12–28–35).2 See also folio 29 recto (D36507; Turner Bequest CCCLXXIV 28).
1
MS note, Tate catalogue files.
2
See Andrew Wilton, ‘The “Monro School” Question: Some Answers’, Turner Studies, vol.4, no.2, Winter 1984, p.11, ill.4.
Verso:
Blank (laid down).

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

Read full Catalogue entry

Explore

You might like

Left Right

In the shop

Browse the shop