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 > Vatican Fragments Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Quattro Fontane Crossroads, Rome, Looking towards the Church of San Carlino and the Quirinale Obelisk 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Quattro Fontane Crossroads, Rome, Looking towards the Church of San Carlino and the Quirinale Obelisk’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 79 Recto:
The Quattro Fontane Crossroads, Rome, Looking towards the Church of San Carlino and the Quirinale Obelisk 1819
D15243
Turner Bequest CLXXX 78
Pencil on paper 101 x 161 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘78’ top right, ascending right-hand edge
Stamped in black ‘CLXXX 78’ ascending right-hand edge
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Cecilia Powell has identified the subject of this sketch as a view of the Quattro Fontane (Four Fountains), a group of sixteenth-century fountains located on a crossroads at the highest point on the Quirinal Hill in Rome.1 Turner’s viewpoint is from present-day Via XX Septembre, looking south-west down the Via del Quirinale towards the ancient obelisk erected in the Piazza del Quirinale, but the artist has manipulated his angle of vision to include a glimpse of all four fountains.2 On the far right-hand side of the composition is the head of the reclining female goddess from the Fountain of Fidelity, or Diana, whilst more clearly visible on the same side is the Fountain of Strength, or Juno. On the opposite side of the Via del Quirinale is the Fountain of the Tiber and the Baroque façade of the Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (also known as San Carlino), whilst just visible on the far left-hand side is the Fountain of the Arno or Aniene.

Nicola Moorby
December 2009

1
Powell 1984, p.421.
2
Powell 1984, p.114 and Powell 1987, p.[41].

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘The Quattro Fontane Crossroads, Rome, Looking towards the Church of San Carlino and the Quirinale Obelisk 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2009, 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-quattro-fontane-crossroads-rome-looking-towards-the-r1139655, accessed 06 May 2025.