J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Monro School c.1794-8 > Collaborations with Thomas Girtin for Dr ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Capriccio with the Dome of St Peter's, Rome, Seen through a Ruined Triumphal Arch c.1797

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Capriccio with the Dome of St Peter's, Rome, Seen through a Ruined Triumphal Arch’ c.1797
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Capriccio with the Dome of St Peter’s, Rome, Seen through a Ruined Triumphal Arch c.1797
D36667
Turner Bequest CCCLXXX 18
Watercolour and gouache on white wove paper, laid down on blue wove paper, 435 x 580 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXXX – 18’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is an altogether unusual sheet, which Finberg listed as ‘doubtful’. The treatment of the distant buildings may be compared with copies after John Robert Cozens (1752–1797) made in the 1790s, hence the suggested date of c.1797; but the arch (an imaginary, Adam-esque one unlike Roman triumphal arches) seems to relate to Turner’s perspective drawings of about 1810 (Turner Bequest CXCV), with which this sheet should possibly be grouped.
C.F. Bell went so far as to suggest that the artist was not Turner at all but Charles-Louis Clérisseau (1721–1820). (For copies of subjects of classical ruins which may be connected with Clérisseau see under D36535; Turner Bequest CCCLXXV 14). However, although the total effect of the work is uncharacteristic, in its drawing and handling of detail it is clearly by Turner.
Technical notes:
There are paints trials in the left margin.
Verso:
Blank; not stamped.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Capriccio with the Dome of St Peter’s, Rome, Seen through a Ruined Triumphal Arch c.1797 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2012, 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-a-capriccio-with-the-dome-of-st-peters-rome-seen-through-a-r1141304, accessed 23 April 2024.