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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
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Joseph Mallord William Turner Verona: The Arena 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Verona: The Arena’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 67 Verso:
Verona: The Arena 1833
D31548
Turner Bequest CCCXI 67a
Pencil on off-white lined paper, 113 x 184 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a view of the Verona Arena, a Roman amphitheatre built in the first century and located on the Piazza Brà. This sketch and that on the folio opposite (Tate D31547; Turner Bequest CCCXI 67) formed the basis of a view published in 1835 as the frontispiece to ‘The Life of Napoleon’, volume IV, in volume XI of Scott’s Prose Works (1834–6).1 See Tate impression T04972. At bottom right are brushstrokes of blue and red watercolour.

Alice Rylance-Watson
September 2017

1
See Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.431 no.1107 and W[illiam] G[eorge] Rawlinson, The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., London 1913, p.289 no.530.

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Verona: The Arena 1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-verona-the-arena-r1203562, accessed 19 February 2026.