Joseph Mallord William Turner

While recognising the subject, Finberg noted: ‘I know of no finished drawing for this design.’1 Indeed, Turner seems not to have developed this view of the rotunda known as the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli into a completed composition. Compare Tate D17191 (Turner Bequest CXCVII A), a large ‘colour beginning’ directly associated with the ambitious watercolour Landscape: Composition of Tivoli, dated 1817, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1818 (private collection),2 where the temple is show high on the right in a view which owes little to the actual topography of the site, about twenty miles north-east of Rome. Turner visited the town in 1819, recording its dramatic setting and classical remains in the Tivoli to Rome, Tivoli and Naples: Rome. C. Studies sketchbooks (Tate; Turner Bequest CLXXIX, CLXXXIII, CLXXXVII).

The exhibited Tivoli subject is one of a number of Italian views based on topographical drawings by other artists such as James Hakewill (1778–1843)3 which Turner produced in the years immediately preceding his first visit; see Nicola Moorby’s introduction to the ‘First Italian Tour 1819–20’ section of this catalogue.4 Andrew Wilton has noted the potential link between this sheet and D17191, which shares its ‘range of heavy colours’,5 albeit noting ‘it is possible that it was done during, or after, the Italian tour of 1819’.6 Ian Warrell has observed that it ‘may have been made as part of the process of creating the large watercolour of Tivoli’,7 while dating it to allow for Turner meanwhile seeing the site in person, as reflected in the range assigned here.

Technical notes:

There is some pencil work towards the top left, as well as the beginning of detailed watercolour work around the roof of the house below the temple.

There is prominent abrasion at the edge of the water at the bottom centre.

Verso:

Blank; laid down. White wove paper backing sheet inscribed in pencil ‘41’ at centre (the ‘1’ apparently overwriting a ‘2’); stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over CXCVI U’ towards bottom left.