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 View of Tivoli from Monte Catillo, with the So-Called Temple of Vesta 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View of Tivoli from Monte Catillo, with the So-Called Temple of Vesta’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 81 Verso:
View of Tivoli from Monte Catillo, with the So-Called Temple of Vesta 1819
D15080
Turner Bequest CLXXIX 80 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 186 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘[?Ilex]’ centre right of sketch
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch depicts a general view of Tivoli from the higher slopes of Monte Catillo. Visible at the vanishing point of the composition is the so-called Temple of Vesta, a circular ruin dating from the first century BC, which stands on the brink of a gorge at the northern edge of the town. The arch near the foreground is the medieval gate of Porta Cornuta, whilst in the far distance to the right are the conical peaks of the Montes Corniculani (Horned Mountains), crowned by the villages of Montecelio and Sant’Angelo Romano.1 Visible in the centre of the composition is the former course of the River Aniene, winding its way through the town before plunging into cascades at a point near the so-called Temple of Vesta on the right. After a devastating flood in 1826 the river was diverted away from the residential district, altering both the topography of the town, and the site of the great waterfall. Similar vistas can be seen in the Tivoli sketchbook (Tate D15554; Turner Bequest CLXXXIII 82) and in the Naples: Rome C. Studies sketchbook (Tate D16119; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 31).

Nicola Moorby
February 2010

1
See Thomas Ashby, ‘Turner at Tivoli’, Burlington Magazine, vol.25, no.136, July 1914, p.242.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘View of Tivoli from Monte Catillo, with the So-Called Temple of Vesta 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-view-of-tivoli-from-monte-catillo-with-the-so-called-temple-r1137715, accessed 19 April 2024.