J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Small Roman Colour Studies Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ruins of the Palace of the Caesars on the Palatine Hill, Rome, looking towards the Aventine Hill 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Ruins of the Palace of the Caesars on the Palatine Hill, Rome, looking towards the Aventine Hill’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 16 Verso:
Ruins of the Palace of the Caesars on the Palatine Hill, Rome, looking towards the Aventine Hill 1819
D16418
Turner Bequest CXC 16 a
Pencil and traces of grey watercolour on white wove paper, 130 x 255 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains part of a panoramic view from the Palace of the Caesars on the Palatine Hill looking south towards the Aventine Hill. The ruins in the foreground represent part of the substructures of Emperor Septimius Severus, whilst in the distance can be seen, from left to right: the Church of Santa Balbina surrounded by trees on the Little Aventine hill; the Pyramid of Cestius and the Porta San Paolo; and on the far right, the Church of Sant’Anselmo all’Aventino. The composition continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 17 (D16419; Turner Bequest CXC 17). Related views can be found in the Albano, Nemi, Rome sketchbook (see Tate D15392–D15393 and D15440–D15441; Turner Bequest CLXXXII 50a–1 and 74a–5). The panorama is also similar to that in a drawing by James Hakewill, Rome, Ruins of the Palace of the Caesars on the Palatine Hill, later published in a series called Eight Views of Rome, 1823 (British School at Rome).1

Nicola Moorby
May 2009

1
Tony Cubberley and Luke Herrmann, Twilight of the Grand Tour: A Catalogue of the drawings by James Hakewill in the British School at Rome Library, Rome 1992, no.3.10, p.188 reproduced.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Ruins of the Palace of the Caesars on the Palatine Hill, Rome, looking towards the Aventine Hill 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-ruins-of-the-palace-of-the-caesars-on-the-palatine-hill-rome-r1132517, accessed 29 November 2024.