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 > Tivoli to Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Tivoli, seen from the Valley, with Rome in the far distance 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Tivoli, seen from the Valley, with Rome in the far distance’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 47 Verso:
Tivoli, seen from the Valley, with Rome in the far distance 1819
D15015
Turner Bequest CLXXIX 47 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 186 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Mist’ centre left-hand edge
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s exploration of Tivoli included a large number of landscape sketches drawn from the river valley to the north. This page contains part of a panoramic view drawn from the floor of the valley looking towards the northern tip of the town. The drawing continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 48 (D15016), but visible on this side is the vista looking south-west down the valley. The spur of land at the left of the composition, topped by a medieval watch-tower, is the point where part of the River Aniene flowed from an underground passage and emerged in cascades down the slopes. The ruined Santuario di Ercole Vincitore (Sanctuary of Hercules the Victor), is just out of sight beyond, whilst visible on the far horizon is a tiny dome indicating the distant St Peter’s in Rome. A similar view can be seen in a drawing by James Hakewill (1778–1843), Tivoli. The first fall of the Cascatelli 1817 (British School at Rome Library).1

Nicola Moorby
February 2010

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.5.6, p.229, reproduced.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Tivoli, seen from the Valley, with Rome in the far distance 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-tivoli-seen-from-the-valley-with-rome-in-the-far-distance-r1137647, accessed 26 April 2024.