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 > Albano, Nemi, Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two views of Rocca di Papa 1819

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two views of Rocca di Papa’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Verso:
Two views of Rocca di Papa 1819
D15342
Turner Bequest CLXXXII 25 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Roca di Papa’ and ‘Blue’ underneath upper sketch and ‘The Palace of Baberini [?dips] into the Sea | Mountains all Light the Town Dark’, bottom right, page inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Rocca di Papa, one of the sixteen Alban communes known as the ‘Castelli Romani’, is situated across the lower slopes of Monte Cavo near Lake Albano. On the upper half of this page Turner has drawn the topography of the town from a distance, perched along a crest of high ground, although he appears to have had some trouble ascertaining the scale of the peak on the far right. The lower sketch shows a more detailed view of part of the town from the west, with the two towers flanking the Duomo dell Assunta clearly visible in the centre.
Beneath these two sketches Turner has written a note about the ‘Palace of Baberini’. He is probably referring to the Villa Barberini, a seventeenth-century residence built for the powerful Barberini family which lies near the Papal Palace in Castel Gandolfo facing towards Lake Albano in one direction and the Mediterranean sea in the other.
The two sketches are inverted on the page.

Nicola Moorby
May 2008

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Two views of Rocca di Papa 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2008, 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-two-views-of-rocca-di-papa-r1132637, accessed 21 May 2025.