J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ruins of the ?Theatre at Herculaneum 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 84 Verso:
Ruins of the ?Theatre at Herculaneum 1819
D15893
Turner Bequest CLXXXV 82 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Finberg first suggested, the rough sketch on this page relates to Turner’s exploration of the ruins at Herculaneum.1 The details are too schematic to be positively identified but they almost certainly relates to the subterranean passageways leading to the interior of the theatre. For a fuller description and a list of Turner’s on-the-spot studies see folio 86 (D15896; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 84).

Nicola Moorby
November 2010

1
Finberg 1909, p.549.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Ruins of the ?Theatre at Herculaneum 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 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-ruins-of-the-theatre-at-herculaneum-r1138364, accessed 26 April 2024.