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 View towards the Porta San Lorenzo and the Arch of Sixtus, Rome 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View towards the Porta San Lorenzo and the Arch of Sixtus, Rome’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 69 Recto:
View towards the Porta San Lorenzo and the Arch of Sixtus, Rome 1819
D15427
Turner Bequest CLXXXII 68
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘68’ top right and ‘301’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXII 68’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The distant towers in this sketch belong to the Porta San Lorenzo, also known as the Porta Tiburtina owing to its position at the beginning of the Via Tiburtina leading out of Rome. The arch in front is one which commemorates Pope Sixtus V, builder of the sixteenth-century aqueduct, the Aqua Felice. The road is the present-day Via Marsala which runs alongside the tracks of the Termini railway station, on the eastern side of the city whilst the area by the arch is now the Piazzale Sisto V. Another similar view of the road is folio 62 verso (D15414, CLXXXII 61a).
It is likely that Turner conceived of depicting this view because of his knowledge of the drawings of James Hakewill. The sketch is very similar in composition to one by Hakewill, Rome. Looking to the Porta S. Lorenzo 1817 (British School at Rome Library).1 The building on the left-hand side of the road can also be seen in Hakewill’s drawing and has been identified as part of the estate of the de Vecchi family.2

Nicola Moorby
May 2008

1
Tony Cubberley and Luke Herrmann, Twilight of the Grand Tour: A Catalogue of the drawings by James Hakewill in the British School at Rome Library, Rome 1992, no.3.32, p.213 reproduced.
2
Ibid.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘View towards the Porta San Lorenzo and the Arch of Sixtus, 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-view-towards-the-porta-san-lorenzo-and-the-arch-of-sixtus-r1132722, accessed 26 April 2024.