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 Part of Panoramic View of Rome from the Tower of the Capitol: Looking Down to the Campidoglio Steps 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Part of Panoramic View of Rome from the Tower of the Capitol: Looking Down to the Campidoglio Steps’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 79 Recto:
Part of Panoramic View of Rome from the Tower of the Capitol: Looking Down to the Campidoglio Steps 1819
D16300
Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 78
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 189 mm
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXVIII 78’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch, inverted on the page, is part of a panoramic view of Rome from the tower of the Senatorial Palace on the Capitoline Hill.1 Turner made a complete record of the 360-degree view from the tower spread across four double-page spreads, see folios 74 verso–79 (D16293–D16300; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 74a–78). For a general discussion see folio 74 verso (D16293; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 74a).
The sketch depicts the Cordonata, the steps leading down from the Piazza del Campidoglio, flanked by the twin statues of the Dioscuri and the two palaces of the Capitoline Museums: the Palazzo dei Conservatori (left); and the Palazzo Nuovo (right). On the far right-hand side is part of the façade of the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. The panorama continues to the left on folio 76 verso (D16295; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 75a) and to the right on folio 77 (D16296; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 76).

Nicola Moorby
January 2009

1
Powell 1984, pp.223 and 427.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Part of Panoramic View of Rome from the Tower of the Capitol: Looking Down to the Campidoglio Steps 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.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-part-of-panoramic-view-of-rome-from-the-tower-of-the-capitol-r1139812, accessed 19 September 2024.