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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin Rome: St Peter's Seen from the Pincian Hill c.1794-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Thomas Girtin 1775–1802
Folio 29 Recto:
Rome: St Peter’s Seen from the Pincian Hill c.1794–8
D36442
Turner Bequest CCCLXXIII 29
Pencil and grey and blue wash on white wove paper, 199 x 279 mm mounted on white cartridge paper, 363 x 495 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Inscribed in pencil ‘29’ on mount, top right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXXIII – 29’ on mount, bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Bell and Girtin relate this drawing to a watercolour by John Robert Cozens (1752–1797) formerly in the Collection of Charles Gore, with the title View from Prince Doria’s Palace, nine Miles from Genoa.1 They give the source sketch as Beaumont tracing (after Cozens) no.86 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven), and cite this ‘Monro School’ copy as ‘differing more than is usual from the tracing’.2 The differences seem to be so great as to involve completely different subject matter. It is possible that the view is from the Janiculum rather than from the Pincian Hill, but it does not appear to show a palace near Genoa.
1
Bell and Girtin 1935, p.36 no.62.
2
Ibid., under no.62.
Verso:
Blank (laid down).

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Rome: St Peter’s Seen from the Pincian Hill c.1794–8 by Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin’, catalogue entry, April 2012, 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-thomas-girtin-rome-st-peters-seen-from-the-pincian-hill-r1140614, accessed 29 March 2024.