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 Porta Asinaria, Rome, from San Giovanni in Laterano 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Porta Asinaria, Rome, from San Giovanni in Laterano’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 89 Recto:
Porta Asinaria, Rome, from San Giovanni in Laterano 1819
D16319
Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 88
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘10’ within ceiling of portico top right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXVIII 88’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg incorrectly identified the subject of this inverted sketch as the Logge of the Vatican. In fact the drawing depicts a view of the Porta Asinaria, a third century gate in the Aurelian Walls, from the portico of San Giovanni in Laterano, the official church of Rome and the seat of the Pope. The composition is similar to that in a drawing by James Hakewill, engraved for Eight Views in Rome and published in 1823.1 For a sketch of the exterior façade of the Porta Asinaria see the Albano, Nemi, Rome sketchbook (Tate D15362; Turner Bequest CLXXXII 36).

Nicola Moorby
January 2009

1
Tony Cubberley and Luke Herrmann, Twilight of the Grand Tour: A catalogue of the drawings by James Hakewill inthe British School at Rome Library, Rome 1992, p.187. no.3.8, reproduced.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Porta Asinaria, Rome, from San Giovanni in Laterano 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-porta-asinaria-rome-from-san-giovanni-in-laterano-r1139831, accessed 19 September 2024.