Joseph Mallord William Turner Palazzo Vidoni, Rome 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 64 Verso:
Palazzo Vidoni, Rome 1819
D16271
Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 63 a
Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 63 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘6’ to right of windows and ‘6’ below semi-columns on upper level of the building’s façade
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.560, as ‘Villa Medici (?)’.
1969
John Gage, Colour in Turner: Poetry and Truth, London 1969, p.101 note 127.
1984
Cecilia Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, p.426, as ‘Palazzo Vidoni’.
2011
Nicola Moorby, ‘Turner’s Sketches for “Rome from the Vatican”: Some Recent Discoveries’, Turner Society News, no.115, Spring 2011, pp.5, 10 note 9.
Cecilia Powell has identified the subject of this sketch as the Palazzo Vidoni-Caffarelli, a sixteenth-century palace which stands in the heart of the city of Rome on present-day Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. Turner’s interest in the building would have derived from the belief that its architect was the great Renaissance master, Raphael (1483–1520), the man whose works were considered the pinnacle of artistic achievement during the nineteenth century. Like the statue of Jonah which Turner sketched in the Chigi Chapel of Santa Maria del Popolo, see folio 48 (D16140; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 47), Raphael’s authorship is now considered to be limited and the design of the palace is generally attributed to his student, Lorenzo Lotti, also known as Lorenzetto (1490–1541).1
Turner’s sketch was clearly executed swiftly. It contains just enough visual information to record the key architectural elements of the building’s façade such as the rusticated cladding on the ground floor and the pairs of semi-columns flanking the windows on the first storey. The artist has not troubled to draw the entire length of the palace and instead has indicated the number of times specific features are repeated.
Nicola Moorby
January 2009
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘Palazzo Vidoni, Rome 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www