Joseph Mallord William Turner The Bridge of Augustus or Tiberius on the River Marecchia at Rimini 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 57 Verso:
The Bridge of Augustus or Tiberius on the River Marecchia at Rimini 1819
D14592
Turner Bequest CLXXVI 53a
Turner Bequest CLXXVI 53a
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 184 mm
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 53a, 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Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, pp.89–90, 407, as ‘Bridge of Augustus at Rimini’, p.465 notes 98 and 100.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.
2008
James Hamilton, ‘Turner e l’Italia’ in Hamilton, Nicola Moorby, Christopher Baker and others, Turner e l’Italia, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara 2008, p.44.
2009
James Hamilton, ‘Turner’s Route to Rome’ in Hamilton, Nicola Moorby, Christopher Baker and others, Turner & Italy, exhibition catalogue, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 2009, pp.42, 150 note 28.
Cecilia Powell recognised the subject as the well-preserved stone Roman Bridge of Augustus (or Tiberius) on the River Marecchia at Rimini.1 The prospect remains recognisable looking west from the Via Bastioni Settentrionali, although the particular buildings at the left do not survive. The features between the arches are decorative low-relief aedicule panels rather than the customary projecting cutwaters.
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 James Hamilton has noted the ‘great care’ with which Turner recorded the city’s Roman remains;3 see the distant view of the bridge on folio 58 recto opposite, and other subjects on folios 59 verso and 60 recto and verso (D14593, D14596–D14598; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 54, 55a, 56, 56a). Folio 70 recto (D14615; CLXXVI 66) apparently shows the lighthouse beside Rimini’s harbour; see also folio 88 recto (D14649; CLXXVI 84).
Fortuitously, Turner had depicted the bridge in his youth, albeit at one remove; compare his tonal gouache and watercolour copy of a painting or print of the scene by Richard Wilson (1713–1782) in the 1796–7 Wilson sketchbook (Tate D01203–D01204; Turner Bequest XXXVII 86–87). He drew the structure again directly on his 1828–9 Italian tour, in the Rimini to Rome sketchbook (Tate D14928; Turner Bequest CLXXVIII 53a).
Powell has commented on the relatively uneventful phase of Turner’s 1819 journey between leaving Bologna and reaching Rimini (folios 43 recto–60 verso; D14566–D14598; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 39a–56a);4 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 Bridge of Augustus or Tiberius on the River Marecchia at Rimini 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