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 > Pompeii, Amalfi, &c., Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Three Sketches of the Ruins of Pompeii, Including the Two Views of the Triangular Forum 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Three Sketches of the Ruins of Pompeii, Including the Two Views of the Triangular Forum’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 16 Recto:
Three Sketches of the Ruins of Pompeii, Including the Two Views of the Triangular Forum 1819
D15766
Turner Bequest CLXXXV 16
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘278’ bottom right and ‘16’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXV 16’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The Triangular Forum in Pompeii is a piazza located at the southern edge of the city adjacent to the theatre area. It is surrounded by a Doric portico which was left open at the southern end to avoid blocking the view below the city. This sketch depicts that prospect looking south towards the Lattari Mountains of the Sorrentine peninsula. On the left are the ruined portico and the wall of the adjoining Great Theatre, whilst to the right are the remains of the Doric Temple. The sketch in the top right-hand corner depicts the porticoed entrance to the Triangular Forum, also known as the Ionic Propylaeum (Gateway). The view is taken from the Via del Tempio d’Iside with the back of the Great Theatre on the left.1
The location of the drawing in the top left-hand corner is currently identified although it appears to depict the columns of a peristyle with a fountain or pool in front.
For further sketches and a general discussion of Turner’s visit to Pompeii see the introduction to the sketchbook.

Nicola Moorby
September 2010

1
The present-day portico has been more fully restored but compare an engraving by Charles Heath, ‘Entrance Portico to the Greek Temple’, published December 1818, reproduced in Sir William Gell and Joseph Gandy, Pompeiana: The Topography, Edifices, and Ornaments of Pompeii, London 1824, vol.II, pl.65, between pp.254–5. See also a painting by Achille-Etna Michallon (1796–1822), Le Forum à Pompéi, reproduced in Anna Ottani Cavina, Paysages d’Italie: les peintres du plein air (1780–1830), exhibition catalogue, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris 2001.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Three Sketches of the Ruins of Pompeii, Including the Two Views of the Triangular Forum 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 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-three-sketches-of-the-ruins-of-pompeii-including-the-two-r1138232, accessed 29 October 2025.