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 > Naples, Paestum and Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Temples of Hera, Paestum 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Temples of Hera, Paestum’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 45 Verso:
The Temples of Hera, Paestum 1819
D15997
Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 43 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Cecilia Powell first identified, the subject of this rough outline sketch is the façade of the Second Temple of Hera (formerly known as the Temple of Neptune), one of the three celebrated fifth-century Greek ruins at Paestum.1 Turner’s viewpoint is from the eastern end of the building looking across the frontal colonnade towards the adjacent Temple of Hera (commonly but erroneously known as the Basilica). For a more detailed discussion and other sketches of the temples see folio 31 (D15968; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 29).

Nicola Moorby
July 2010

1
Powell 1984, p.425.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘The Temples of Hera, Paestum 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 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-the-temples-of-hera-paestum-r1137921, accessed 19 April 2024.