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 Torre dei Margani, Rome, from the Esquiline Hill 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Torre dei Margani, Rome, from the Esquiline Hill’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 91 Verso:
Torre dei Margani, Rome, from the Esquiline Hill 1819
D16324
Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 90 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Nine Bands Corbels | [?Blocked] Tower’ top right and ‘Bank’ bottom right and ‘W’ bottom centre, underneath tower
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The principal focus for this inverted sketch is the Torre dei Margani, a medieval tower adopted as the campanile (bell-tower) for the adjacent monastery of San Francesco di Paola on the Piazza di San Pietro in Vincoli. Turner’s sketch is taken from the east, somewhere on the Esquiline Hill. His view looks past the tower towards the Forum and the Capitoline Hill beyond, including the Basilica of Constantine and Maxentius on the left, and the Tower of the Campidoglio in the centre. Part of the composition may spill over onto the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 92 (D16325; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 91).
Turner made a number of sketches depicting the view in different directions from the Esquiline Hill, see folios 90 verso–92 (D16322–D16325; Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 89a–91).

Nicola Moorby
January 2009

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Torre dei Margani, Rome, from the Esquiline Hill 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-torre-dei-margani-rome-from-the-esquiline-hill-r1139836, accessed 20 September 2024.