Joseph Mallord William Turner The River Marecchia at Rimini, with the Bridge of Augustus or Tiberius beyond Moored Sailing Boats 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 58 Recto:
The River Marecchia at Rimini, with the Bridge of Augustus or Tiberius beyond Moored Sailing Boats 1819
D14593
Turner Bequest CLXXVI 54
Turner Bequest CLXXVI 54
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 184 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘54’ bottom right (now faint)
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVI – 54’ bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘54’ bottom right (now faint)
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVI – 54’ bottom right
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.518, CLXXVI 54, as ‘Bridge with town’.
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Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, pp.89–90, 407, as ‘The River Marecchia at Rimini’, p.465 notes 98 and 100.
1987
Cecilia Powell, Turner in the South: Rome, Naples, Florence, New Haven and London 1987, pp.24, 202 note 42.
The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated correctly Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Bridge with town’) as ‘Rimini’. He crossed out Finberg’s curly bracket (usually an indication of a continuous view) linking this page with folio 57 verso opposite (D14592; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 53a), under which other Rimini drawings are noted;1 the two drawings are indeed separate, albeit showing different aspects of the same bridge. The other view focuses on the bridge itself, while here it is placed in a wider pictorial context with its horizontals offset by the verticals of a cluster of masts. Looking south-west, a similar prospect can today be obtained from the Ponte dei Mille, including the campanile of the church of Santa Maria in Corte on the Corso d’Augusto left of the bridge.
Powell has characterised the site as one of those that Turner came across simply by following the major routes through Italy and thus ‘did not have to go out of his way’ to garner a useful store of incidental subjects.2 She has commented on the relatively uneventful phase of Turner’s journey between leaving Bologna and reaching Rimini (folios 43 recto–60 verso; D14566–D14598; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 39a–56a);3 for his overall route south-east between Bologna and Ancona, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.
Matthew Imms
March 2017
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘The River Marecchia at Rimini, with the Bridge of Augustus or Tiberius beyond Moored Sailing Boats 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2017, https://www