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 > St Peter's Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Isola Tiberina, Rome, Looking towards the Aventine Mount 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Isola Tiberina, Rome, Looking towards the Aventine Mount’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 32 Recto:
The Isola Tiberina, Rome, Looking towards the Aventine Mount 1819
D16212
Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 31
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 189 mm
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXVIII 31’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner made a large number of drawings with the River Tiber as the central focus. This view incorporates the Isola Tiberina (Tiber Island) looking downstream towards the Aventine Mount including the two bridges which link the island to either shore. On the right is the Ponte Cestio which crosses towards the Trastevere district on the west and on the left is the Ponte Fabricius, the oldest surviving bridge in Rome (also known as the Ponte Quattro Capi), which crosses towards the Jewish ghetto on the east. The river has been left as a blank space in the foreground but Turner’s viewpoint suggests that he was standing on the Ponte Sisto, another bridge further upstream.
For other sketches of the Isola Tiberina see the Albano, Nemi, Rome sketchbook (Tate D15372; Turner Bequest CLXXXII 41) and the Rome and Florence sketchbook (Tate D16488; CXCI 2).
Verso:
Blank

Nicola Moorby
September 2008

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘The Isola Tiberina, Rome, Looking towards the Aventine Mount 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 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-the-isola-tiberina-rome-looking-towards-the-aventine-mount-r1139723, accessed 26 April 2024.