Joseph Mallord William Turner

Turner made a number of on-the-spot sketches and more elaborate drawings of the view of Rome from Monte Mario. This page depicts part of the view looking south towards St Peter’s and the Castel Sant’Angelo. The building glimpsed at the far right-hand edge of the sketch meanwhile is probably the Villa Madama, a sixteenth-century suburban residence built on the eastern slopes of Monte Mario, see folio 13 verso (D16182). The eaves of the roofline correspond to those more clearly depicted in another drawing (see Tate D16352; Turner Bequest CLXXXIX 26).

As Finberg identified, the viewpoint of this sketch is very close to a more detailed tonal composition in the Roman Colour Studies sketchbook (Turner Bequest CLXXXIX 31; Tate D16357).1 This in turn provided the basis for a finished watercolour, Rome, from Monte Mario c.1820 (private collection), painted on Turner’s return to England, for his friend and patron, Walter Fawkes.2

For a general discussion of Turner’s views from Monte Mario see folio 9 verso (D16174).