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 The Gardens of the Villa d'Este, Tivoli, from the Organ Fountain 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Gardens of the Villa d'Este, Tivoli, from the Organ Fountain’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Recto:
The Gardens of the Villa d’Este, Tivoli, from the Organ Fountain 1819
D14994
Turner Bequest CLXXIX 37
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 186 mm
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘37’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXIX 37’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch depicts part of the sixteenth-century Villa d’Este, in Tivoli. The view looks south across the gardens towards the casino from the Organ Fountain, a hydraulic water feature which was designed to push air through a series of pipes to emit sound. The tall circular structure behind the fountain is the apse of the Church of San Pietro alla Carità. In the top right-hand corner is a smaller sketch of another detail of the gardens.
For a full discussion of Turner’s sketches of the Villa d’Este see folio 5 verso (D14942).

Nicola Moorby
January 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘The Gardens of the Villa d’Este, Tivoli, from the Organ Fountain 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-the-gardens-of-the-villa-deste-tivoli-from-the-organ-r1137626, accessed 23 April 2024.