Joseph Mallord William Turner View of Tivoli at Sunset, with the So-Called Temples of Vesta and the Sibyl 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 40 Recto:
View of Tivoli at Sunset, with the So-Called Temples of Vesta and the Sibyl 1819
D15000
Turner Bequest CLXXIX 40
Turner Bequest CLXXIX 40
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 186 mm
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘40’ bottom left, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CLXXIX 40’ top left, inverted
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘40’ bottom left, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CLXXIX 40’ top left, inverted
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.528 as ‘Landscape, with buildings and trees on side of hill’.
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Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, p.174 note 17.
1987
Cecilia Powell, Turner in the South: Rome, Naples, Florence, New Haven and London 1987, p.[77] note 15.
This page contains a distant view of Tivoli from the north-east, looking from a point on present-day Via Quintilio Varo, on the lower slopes of Monte Catillo. The ancient ruined temples of the so-called Temple of Vesta and the Temple of the Sibyl, can be seen silhouetted against the horizon on the right, whilst to the left is the campanile of the Cathedral (Duomo) of San Lorenzo. The hasty character of the lines and the areas of cross-hatching and heavy shading suggest that Turner was sketching at the end of the day when the light was failing in the west and parts of the landscape were cast into deep shadow. The drawing spills over onto the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 39 verso (D14999).
Turner made several sketches from this viewpoint, see folios 41–42 verso and 87 verso (D15002–D15005, and D15092), the Tivoli sketchbook (Tate D15468, D15488, D15500–D15502; Turner Bequest CLXXXIII 2, 22, 33–5), and in the Naples: Rome C. Studies sketchbook (Tate D16116 and D16118; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 28 and 30). He also repeated the vista during his 1828 visit to Tivoli, see the Roman and French sketchbook (Tate D21912; Turner Bequest CCXXXVII 35a). The composition is similar to that of an early oil painting, Tivoli and the Roman Campagna circa 1798 (Tate, N05512),1 which was itself based upon a version of a picture by the eighteenth-century Welsh artist, Richard Wilson (1713–1782), for example, Temple of the Sibyl and the Roman Campagna circa 1765–70 (Tate, T01706).
Nicola Moorby
January 2010
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘View of Tivoli at Sunset, with the So-Called Temples of Vesta and the Sibyl 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www