Joseph Mallord William Turner

Despite the wide range of subject matter represented within this sketchbook, Turner labelled it the ‘St Peter’s’ sketchbook, a title which derives from a series of eight studies recording scenes from the interior of the famous basilica, see folios 17 verso, 84 and 85–87 (D16189, D16309, and D16311–D16315; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 17a, 83, and 84–86). These sketches, executed swiftly in the relative gloom of the church, are principally concerned with exploring the complex perspective of the architectural arrangement of the building, looking down through the side aisles and nave towards the transepts and the crossing. As Cecilia Powell has written they ‘vividly record the experience of being in the huge, interlocking spaces of a vast building’.1 Turner may have referred to them when painting a finished watercolour for Walter Fawkes, Interior of St. Peter’s, Rome 1821 (The Morgan Library & Museum, New York).2

Powell has identified this inverted sketch as a view of the interior from next to the Monument to Pope Paul III in the apse of the basilica. The sketch looks down towards the crossing and the twisted columns of Bernini’s baldacchino, a bronze canopy which stands over the high altar beneath the dome of the church. In order to gain such a viewpoint Turner must have tucked himself into the space in between the Altar of the Chair and the Monument to Urban VIII. The hand of the Pope and the head of one of the lower figures from the latter can be seen on the left-hand side of the page. On the right meanwhile is the Monument to Paul III. Executed by Guglielmo della Porta (1533–1602) after designs by Michelangelo, the work comprises two reclining allegorical figures, surmounted by a bronze statue of the Pope.3 See also another sketch on folio 68 verso (D16279; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 67a) which depicts the figures of Justice and Prudence from the base of the monument.