J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Tivoli to Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Four Landscape Views near Tivoli, including the Tomb of the Plautii and Ponte Lucano 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Four Landscape Views near Tivoli, including the Tomb of the Plautii and Ponte Lucano’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 92 Recto:
Four Landscape Views near Tivoli, including the Tomb of the Plautii and Ponte Lucano 1819
D15101
Turner Bequest CLXXIX 91
Pencil on white wove paper, 186 x 112 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘PLAUTUS’ bottom centre
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘91’ top left, ascending left-hand edge
Stamped in black ‘CLXXIX 82’ top right, ascending right-hand edge
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains four landscape views, possible made during the return trip to Rome from Tivoli. Identifiable within the bottom two vistas is the Tomb of the Plautius family (or Tomb of the Plautii), a cylindrical first-century funerary monument of Travertine stone, which stands on the Via Valeria, approximately two miles west of Tivoli. Turner made over twenty variant studies of the tomb and the adjacent Ponte Lucano, see folio 27 verso (D14975). The large number of sketches indicates that he was afforded enough time to fully explore the site from a number of different angles on foot. However, the rough nature of these particular drawings indicates that they may have been executed from a moving carriage.

Nicola Moorby
January 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Four Landscape Views near Tivoli, including the Tomb of the Plautii and Ponte Lucano 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-four-landscape-views-near-tivoli-including-the-tomb-of-the-r1137736, accessed 20 April 2024.