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 Nine Sketches of the Aurelian Walls, Rome 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Nine Sketches of the Aurelian Walls, Rome’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 50 Recto:
Nine Sketches of the Aurelian Walls, Rome 1819
D15389
Turner Bequest CLXXXII 49
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘M[...]’ or ‘[?Walls]’ bottom centre left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘49’ top right and ‘301’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXII 49’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Cecilia Powell has identified the subject of these nine drawings as sections of the Aurelian Walls. Built 271–275 AD, these Roman walls, characterised by regular square towers, enclosed the ancient city of Rome and its seven hills and several surviving sections can still be seen today. Powell has also suggested that the rough nature of Turner’s sketches indicates that he might have been drawing from a moving vehicle.1

Nicola Moorby
May 2008

1
Powell 1984, p.472 note 11.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Nine Sketches of the Aurelian Walls, Rome 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-nine-sketches-of-the-aurelian-walls-rome-r1132684, accessed 18 April 2024.