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 River Tiber and the Fontana dell'Acqua Acetosa, near Rome 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The River Tiber and the Fontana dell'Acqua Acetosa, near Rome’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 39 Recto:
The River Tiber and the Fontana dell’Acqua Acetosa, near Rome 1819
D16222
Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 38
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 189 mm
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXVIII 38’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch depicts a bend of the River Tiber on the northern outskirts of Rome looking towards the Fontana dell’Acqua Acetosa, a seventeenth-century fountain built about a mile up-river (east) from the Ponte Molle, Rome, see folio 40 verso (D16225; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 39a). Turner’s viewpoint appears to be from an area of high ground near the banks of the river, now occupied by the Villa Glori park. Turner made a number of sketches of this part of the Campagna north of Rome, possibly inspired by its associations with Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain, see folio 36 (D16217; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 35).
Part of the sketch continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, which also contains two further drawings depicting the same view, see folio 38 verso (D16221).

Nicola Moorby
September 2008

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘The River Tiber and the Fontana dell’Acqua Acetosa, near Rome 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-river-tiber-and-the-fontana-dellacqua-acetosa-near-rome-r1139734, accessed 26 April 2024.