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 > Milan to Venice Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner One of the Archways in the Arena of the Amphitheatre at Verona 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘One of the Archways in the Arena of the Amphitheatre at Verona’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 26 Verso:
One of the Archways in the Arena of the Amphitheatre at Verona 1819
D14365
Turner Bequest CLXXV 26a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 185 mm
Partial watermark ‘Al | 18’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[...]’ top right, ‘13’ left of centre, and ‘V’ right of centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘A gateway (?)’): ‘Arcades’.1 Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, an archway is flanked by a smaller arch below steps and topped by a balustrade, and is in fact one of the two similar entrances to the arena of Verona’s Roman amphitheatre, at the north-west and south-east ends of the oval enclosure.
For other views of the arena and the city, see under see under folio 25 recto (D14363).

Matthew Imms
March 2017

1
Undated MS note by C.F. Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.512.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘One of the Archways in the Arena of the Amphitheatre at Verona 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-one-of-the-archways-in-the-arena-of-the-amphitheatre-at-r1186478, accessed 01 April 2026.