Joseph Mallord William Turner Studies of Sculptural Fragments from the Vatican Museums, Including a Female Seated Figure with the Grave Urn of Tiberius Octavius Diadumenus 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 38 Recto:
Studies of Sculptural Fragments from the Vatican Museums, Including a Female Seated Figure with the Grave Urn of Tiberius Octavius Diadumenus 1819
D15176
Turner Bequest CLXXX 37
Turner Bequest CLXXX 37
Pencil on white wove paper, 161 x 101 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘37’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXX 37’ bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘37’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXX 37’ 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.532, as ‘Lower part of a draped seated figure – No. “47”; “Octavi”, “Diadumen”, &c.’.
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Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, pp.416, 476 note 8, as ‘(a) Fragment of a female seated figure and (b) its present base, the grave urn of Ti. Octavius Diadumenus (A, II, pl. 4, 7 and 7a) (c) Child’s sarcophagus (A, II, pl.4, 14a)’.
1987
Cecilia Powell, Turner in the South: Rome, Naples, Florence, New Haven and London 1987, p.51 note 6.
During his 1819 stay in Rome, one of Turner’s most extensive sketching campaigns was the large number of pencil studies made from the sculpture collections of the Vatican Museums (for a general discussion, see the introduction to the sketchbook). This page contains sketches of objects found in the Museo Pio-Clementino. The studies are numbered from top to bottom:
a.
Cecilia Powell has identified the subject of the upper sketch as a fragment of a female seated figure and the base upon which it stands, the grave urn of Tiberius Octavius Diadumenus.1 Today these two objects are found in the East Portico of the Cortile Ottagono (also known as the Cortile Ottagonale, formerly the Cortile del Belvedere) in the Museo Pio-Clementino.2 The base is decorated with reliefs and Turner has transcribed the Latin text from the front as ‘D M | TI OCTAVI | DIADVMEN’. He has also annotated the drawing ‘47’, which presumably relates to an exhibit number displayed on the work. However, it does not appear to correspond to any known lists published within contemporary guide books or catalogues of the Vatican collections.
b.
Powell has identified the lower sketch as part of a child’s sarcophagus found in the Sala del Meleagro (Gallery of the Meleager) in the Museo Pio-Clementino.3
Cecilia Powell has identified the subject of the upper sketch as a fragment of a female seated figure and the base upon which it stands, the grave urn of Tiberius Octavius Diadumenus.1 Today these two objects are found in the East Portico of the Cortile Ottagono (also known as the Cortile Ottagonale, formerly the Cortile del Belvedere) in the Museo Pio-Clementino.2 The base is decorated with reliefs and Turner has transcribed the Latin text from the front as ‘D M | TI OCTAVI | DIADVMEN’. He has also annotated the drawing ‘47’, which presumably relates to an exhibit number displayed on the work. However, it does not appear to correspond to any known lists published within contemporary guide books or catalogues of the Vatican collections.
b.
Powell has identified the lower sketch as part of a child’s sarcophagus found in the Sala del Meleagro (Gallery of the Meleager) in the Museo Pio-Clementino.3
Nicola Moorby
November 2009
Powell 1984, p.416. See Walther Amelung, Die Sculpturen des Vaticanischen Museums, Berlin 1903–8, vol.II, ‘I. Belvedere’, nos.7 and 7a, pp.26–9, reproduced pl.4. See also pl.3.
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘Studies of Sculptural Fragments from the Vatican Museums, Including a Female Seated Figure with the Grave Urn of Tiberius Octavius Diadumenus 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www