In 1823, Marianne Colston wrote that the combination of the Temple’s ruined architecture with wild plants growing over it ‘presents the most picturesque and lovely object to the painter’.
4 In fact, by the nineteenth century it had become a popular motif for artists, the people according to James Whiteside who had ‘succeeded the warriors and emperors who once dwelt in the eternal city.’
5 Turner was familiar with the appearance of the monument through the work of others such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi,
6 Richard Wilson,
7 and James Hakewill.
8 He had also depicted it prior to seeing it for himself, as the subject in one of the plates of the
Liber Studiorum,
The Temple of Minerva Medica (‘Hindoo Devotions’ or ‘The Hindoo Worshipper’) circa 1808 (see Tate
D08128; Turner Bequest CXVII A), engraved by Robert Dunkarton, 1811 (see Tate
A00957). During his 1819 visit to Rome he made numerous studies of the structure from a variety of angles, see the
Albano, Nemi, Rome sketchbook (Tate
D15401; Turner Bequest CLXXXII 55), the
St Peter’s sketchbook (Tate
D16318; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 87a), and the
Small Roman Colour Studies sketchbook (Tate
D16436–D16438; Turner Bequest CXC 27a–29). His sketches shows that at this time the building still had the partial remains of a vaulted roof. This, however, subsequently collapsed in 1828.