Joseph Mallord William Turner The Basilica of Constantine, Rome 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Basilica of Constantine, Rome 1819
D16365
Turner Bequest CLXXXIX 38
Turner Bequest CLXXXIX 38
Gouache, pen-and-ink, pencil, watercolour and grey watercolour wash on white wove ‘Valleyfield’ paper, 230 x 367 mm
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXIX 38’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXIX 38’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1904
National Gallery, London, various dates to at least 1904 (597).
1931
Display of Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, lent from the British Museum, National Gallery, Millbank, Tate Gallery, London 1931–March 1934 (no catalogue).
1971
Classical Sites and Monuments, British Museum, London, July–October 1971 (66).
1975
Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, British Museum, London, May 1975–February 1976 (62, reproduced, as ‘The Basilica of Constantine’).
1981
Turner’s First Visit to Italy, 1819: Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Loaned by the British Museum, Tate Gallery, London, April–October 1981 (no catalogue).
1983
J.M.W. Turner, à l’occasion du cinquantième anniversaire du British Council, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, October 1983–January 1984 (146, reproduced, as ‘Rome: la basilique de Constantin’).
1990
Turner’s Papers: A Study of the Manufacture, Selection and Use of his Drawing Papers 1787–1820, Tate Gallery, London, October 1990–January 1991 (54, reproduced).
2009
Turner és Itália, Szépmuvészeti Múzeum, Budapest, July–October 2009 (no number, reproduced).
References
1902
John Ruskin, Ruskin on Pictures, 1902, p.242.
1904
E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn (eds.), Library Edition: The Works of John Ruskin: Volume XIII: Turner: The Harbours of England; Catalogues and Notes, London 1904, no.597, pp.299, frame no.108, drawing no.228, 636, as ‘Rome. Basilica of Constantine’.
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.563, as ‘The Basilica of Constantine. Pen and ink, and mixed pure and body colour. 597, N.G.’.
1920
D[ugald] S[utherland] MacColl, National Gallery, Millbank: Catalogue: Turner Collection, London 1920, p.88.
1971
Andrew Wilton, Classical Sites and Monuments, exhibition catalogue, British Museum, London 1971, no.66, [p.16], as ‘The Basilica of Maxentius’.
1975
Andrew Wilton, Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, British Museum, London 1975, no.62, p.54 under no.68, reproduced, as ‘The Basilica of Constantine’.
1983
John Gage, Jerrold Ziff, Nicholas Alfrey and others, J.M.W. Turner, à l’occasion du cinquantième anniversaire du British Council, exhibition catalogue, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris 1983, no.146, pp.220–1, reproduced, as ‘Rome: la basilique de Constantin’.
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.122, 256 note 106, reproduced pl.69, as ‘The Basilica of Constantine’.
1987
Cecilia Powell, Turner in the South: Rome, Naples, Florence, New Haven and London 1987, pp.49, 125 note 65, reproduced p.27 colour pl.4, as ‘The Basilica of Constantine’.
1990
Peter Bower, Turner’s Papers: A Study of the Manufacture, Selection and Use of his Drawing Papers 1787–1820, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1990, pp.15 note 2, 120 no.54 reproduced and with transmitted light detail 54A and colour raking 54B, as ‘The Basilica of Constantine’.
2009
Christopher Baker and James Hamilton, Turner és Itália, exhibition catalogue, Szépmuvészeti Múzeum, Budapest 2009, p.54, reproduced p. [51] fig.53.
The remains of the fourth-century Basilica of Constantine and Maxentius (sometimes erroneously called the Temple of Peace) stand at the eastern end of the Roman Forum. This vast building, once used for business and judiciary affairs, is the subject of a large number of drawings dating from Turner’s 1819 tour, see the Albano, Nemi, Rome sketchbook (Tate D15394; Turner Bequest CLXXXII 51a), the St Peter’s sketchbook (Tate D16262–D16266; Turner Bequest 58a–60a) and other studies within this sketchbook (D16346, D16356, D16376 and D16382; Turner Bequest CLXXXIX 20, 30, 47 and 53). It also dominates the right-hand side of Turner’s large oil painting, Forum Romanum, for Mr Soane’s Museum exhibited 1826 (Tate N00504).1 The edifice was the largest in the ancient Forum and this study captures the huge physical presence of the basilica by focusing on only one of the three surviving barrel vaults and slanting the viewpoint so that the arched opening with its coffered ceiling entirely fills the left-hand side of the composition. Turner also appears to have manipulated the arrangement of the topograhy to suit his own artistic purposes. Visible within the pictorial space on the far right is the campanile of the Church of Santa Francesca Romana, which the artist has pulled closer to the basilica from its true position. However, the Colosseum, which also should appear beyond the ruined arcade of the eastern vestibule, is missing. The sense of scale is further enhanced by the inclusion of some figurative detail in the foreground. Amidst the fragments visible lying on the ground below the vault Turner has drawn a couple of men, one of whom appears to be taking a nap on top of a piece of fallen masonry. The sense of decaying and faded grandeur is further enhanced by the presence of cows within the ruins, reflecting the modern usage of the site as a market for livestock and the modern appellation of the Forum as the ‘Campo Vaccino’ (Field of Cattle).
Turner’s treatment of the Basilica of Constantine reflects his knowledge of the Italian engraver, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778), particularly the Vedute di Roma, which Turner had studied as a young man in the collection of Sir Richard Colt Hoare at Stourhead. The close-up view of one of the great vaults, the compositional device of placing the Basilica diagonally to the picture plane, and the inclusion of figures and animals to enliven the design all recall Piranesi’s eighteenth-century etching, Ruine des Speisesaals des Nero, sog. Tempio della Pace.2 There is also some similarity with the Roman watercolour paintings of the Swiss artist, Louis Ducros (1748–1810), for example Basilique de Maxence (Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne).3 Like many pages within this sketchbook, the composition has been executed over a washed grey background. Turner first drew the outline in pencil before partially working up the view with watercolour, touches of white gouache and black pen-and-ink. Andrew Wilton has also suggested that the bright colouring and mixed media is a conscious imitation of the work of contemporary topographic and architectural draughtsmen such as Carlo Labruzzi (1748–1817) and Charles-Louis Clérisseau (1721–1820).4 John Ruskin described it as a ‘noble study for its breadth of colour’.5
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, no.233.
Reproduced in Pierre Chessex, Lindsay Stainton, Luc Boissonnas et al., Images of the Grand Tour: Louis Ducros, exhibition catalogue, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne 1985, no.5, p.[48].
Verso:
Blank except for traces of grey watercolour wash; inscribed by an unknown hand in pencil ‘11’ centre, parallel with right-hand edge, and stamped in black ‘CLXXXIX 38’ bottom right.
Nicola Moorby
October 2009
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘The Basilica of Constantine, Rome 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www