Joseph Mallord William Turner

Ponte dell’Acquoria, Tivoli

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
Tivoli to Rome Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 112 × 186 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D15037
Turner Bequest CLXXIX 59 a

Catalogue entry

This sketch depicts a view looking west down the river valley to the north of Tivoli. At the bottom of the composition is the Ponte dell’Acquoria (Bridge of the Golden Water), a Roman crossing which carried the ancient Via Tiburtina across the River Aniene. As Turner’s sketch shows, the bridge was comprised of a single surviving stone arch with a temporary wooden structure crossing the remaining piers.1 The area is now dominated by an electrical power plant.
Alternative studies of the bridge can be seen on folio 46 (D15012) and in the Tivoli sketchbook (Tate D15508; Turner Bequest CLXXXIII 41).

Nicola Moorby
February 2010

1
Compare a print by Johann Christian Reinhart (1761–1847), Ponte Acquoreo a Tivoli, 1798, see: http://www.galerie-fach.de/produkt/2009_96/kd12796.html, accessed February 2010.

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