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 > Pompeii, Amalfi, &c., Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Well and Tholos in the Triangular Forum, Pompeii 1819

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Well and Tholos in the Triangular Forum, Pompeii’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 14 Verso:
The Well and Tholos in the Triangular Forum, Pompeii 1819
D15763
Turner Bequest CLXXXV 14 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The Triangular Forum in Pompeii is a piazza located at the southern edge of the city adjacent to the theatre area. This sketch depicts the ruins of a sacred round well at the southern end of the Forum which is surrounded by the remains of seven Doric columns which once formed a tholos (a circular building) over the structure.1 The adjacent objects represent fragments of various altars and tombs and dominating the background is the distant Lattari mountain of the Sorrentine peninsula. For alternative studies relating to the Triangular Forum see folio 16–16 verso, 24–24 verso, 26 verso (D15766–D15767, D15782–D15783, D15787). For further sketches and a general discussion of Turner’s visit to Pompeii see the introduction to the sketchbook.

Nicola Moorby
September 2010

1
Part of the present-day tholos has been more extensively reconstructed. See http://pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpictures/R8/8%2007%2032.htm, accessed September 2010.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘The Well and Tholos in the Triangular Forum, Pompeii 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2010, 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-the-well-and-tholos-in-the-triangular-forum-pompeii-r1138229, accessed 21 December 2024.