Joseph Mallord William Turner Bridge of Augustus, Narni 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 62 Recto:
Bridge of Augustus, Narni 1819
D14773
Turner Bequest CLXXVII 62
Turner Bequest CLXXVII 62
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 186 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘62’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVII 62’ bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘62’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVII 62’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
2008
Turner e l’Italia/Turner and Italy, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara, November 2008–February 2009, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, March–June 2009 (41, reproduced in colour).
2009
Turner és Itália, Szépmuvészeti Múzeum, Budapest, July–October 2009 (no number, reproduced in colour).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.522, as ‘Do. [Narni, with Bridge of Augustus.]’.
1982
Cecilia Powell, ‘Topography, Imagination and Travel: Turner’s Relationship with James Hakewill’, Art History, vol.5, no.4, December 1982, p.424 note 52.
1984
Cecilia Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, pp. 101, 469 note 143, 103 notes 152, 154, 356 note 33.
1987
Cecilia Powell, Turner in the South: Rome, Naples, Florence, New Haven and London 1987, pp.34, 35, reproduced pl.31.
2008
James Hamilton, Nicola Moorby, Christopher Baker and others, Turner e l’Italia, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara 2008, no.41, pp.44, 90 note 29, [143], [179], reproduced in colour, p.182 as ‘Narni con il ponte di Augusto’.
2009
Christopher Baker and James Hamilton, Turner és Itália, exhibition catalogue, Szépmuvészeti Múzeum, Budapest 2009, p.45, reproduced p.43, fig.42.
Turner devoted a considerable number of sketches to the Roman Bridge of Augustus (Ponte d’Augusto) at Narni, one of the most famous landmarks in Umbria, see folio 61 verso (D14772). This view, depicting the single surviving arch and the remains of the other supporting piers, was drawn from the centre of the adjacent medieval bridge looking west along the gorge of the River Nera. Framed within the arch is the distant hillside monastery of San Cassiano. In the left-hand foreground two tiny stooping figures provide a sense of the grand scale of the remains. The drawing is continued on folio 63 (D14775), where the artist has folded back the page in order to complete the sketch on the sheet below.
Whether deliberately or subconsciously, Turner has replicated the same composition as that of his watercolour illustration, The Bridge at Narni (whereabouts unknown),1 based upon a drawing by James Hakewill for the latter’s Picturesque Tour of Italy, published 1819 (see Tate T05079 and T06014).2 The accompanying text described the picturesque properties of the vista:
There are few relics of antiquity that impress the traveller with greater ideas of Roman magnificence than the sight of this bridge affords ... the situation of the convent, which appears through the arch of the bridge is one of the most romantic that can be imagined; it stands on an eminence rising abruptly from the river bank, encircled by a lofty amphitheatre of rocks clothed from top to bottom with cypress, laurel, olive and ilex.3
In fact, the view was an established motif for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century topographical artists, see for example James Redaway’s engraving after Samuel Prout, Bridge of Augustus at Narni 1830 (Tate, T06439) and Turner’s small pen-and-ink copy of a print after John ‘Warwick’ Smith in the Italian Guide Book sketchbook (Tate D13964; Turner Bequest CLXXII 18).
Nicola Moorby
November 2008
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, no.702. Previous owners include Munro of Novar and John Ruskin. see also W.G. Rawlinson, The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., vol.I, London 1908, no.146.
Tony Cubberley and Luke Herrmann, Twilight of the Grand Tour: A Catalogue of the drawings by James Hakewill in the British School at Rome Library, Rome 1992, no.2.52, reproduced p.169. See also W.G. Rawlinson, The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., vol.I, London 1908, no.146.
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘Bridge of Augustus, Narni 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2008, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www