Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
Italy
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
Oil paintings
Collection
Turner owned by Tate
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558" aria-label="More by Joseph Mallord William Turner" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a>
Orvieto Painted in Rome
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
architecture
bridge
bridges and viaducts
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
countries and continents
domestic
fine arts and music
hill
instrument, lute
Italy
landscape
laundering
mist
objects
Orvieto - non-specific
people
places
river
townscape, distant
townscapes / man-made features
tree
valley
water: inland
weather
well
woman
work and occupations
<p>In October 1828 Turner arrived in Rome, Italy, for a three-month stay. He had passed through Orvieto, to the north of Rome, on his way. According to a letter he wrote to sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey, he had completed this painting within a month of arriving to stop the ‘gabbling’ of studio visitors who complained he had no paintings to show them. It was first shown at the exhibition Turner held in his lodgings in Rome, and then exhibited in London two years later. One critic said its ‘gaudiness’ was the only reason people stopped to look at it.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2023</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
5 August 2002 – 21 May 2007
2007-05-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-08-05
Turner at Tate Britain
Collection based display
16 November 2008 – 7 June 2009
2009-06-07
23 November 2008 – 22 February 2009
2009-02-22
2008-11-23
Palazzo dei Diamanti (Ferrara, Italy)
23 March 2009 – 7 June 2009
2009-06-07
2009-03-23
National Galleries of Scotland (Edinburgh, UK)
15 July 2009 – 25 October 2009
2009-10-25
2009-07-15
Szépmüvészeti Múzeum (Budapest, Hungary)
http://www.szepmuveszeti.hu/
2008-11-16
Turner and Italy
Loan-out
21 April 2012 – 1 March 2020
2020-03-01
21 April 2012 – 1 March 2020
2020-03-01
2012-04-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-04-21
Turner Exhibited
Collection based display
5 September 2015 – 3 January 2016
2016-01-03
5 September 2015 – 3 January 2016
2016-01-03
2015-09-05
Rijksmuseum Twenthe (Enschede, Netherlands)
5 September 2015 – 3 January 2016
2016-01-03
2015-09-05
Museum de Fundatie (Zwolle, Netherlands)
2015-09-05
Danger and Beauty - William Turner and the Tradition of the Sublime
Loan-out
6 April 2020 – 27 November 2022
2022-11-27
6 April 2020
2020-04-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2020-04-06
Clore 107
Collection based display
13 March 2023
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2023-03-13
Gallery 104
Collection based display
View of Orvieto, Painted in Rome
support: 914 × 1232 mm
frame: 1280 × 1580 × 160 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the <a href="/search?gid=999999781" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Turner Bequest</a> 1856
<div class="text">
<p>In October 1828 Turner arrived in Rome, Italy, for a three-month stay. He had passed through Orvieto, to the north of Rome, on his way. According to a letter he wrote to sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey, he had completed this painting within a month of arriving to stop the ‘gabbling’ of studio visitors who complained he had no paintings to show them. It was first shown at the exhibition Turner held in his lodgings in Rome, and then exhibited in London two years later. One critic said its ‘gaudiness’ was the only reason people stopped to look at it.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2023-10-25T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p>[from]<b> Works Painted in Rome, 1828–9</b></p>
<p>TURNER went to Rome for the second time in 1828, leaving England in August and arriving in October; he stayed until early January 1829, and was back in England in February. Sir Charles Eastlake told Thornbury that they both stayed at 12 Piazza Mignanelli and that Turner ‘painted there the “View of Orvieto”, the “Regulus” and the “Medea” [Nos. 292 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-view-of-orvieto-painted-in-rome-n00511" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00511</span></a>], 294 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-regulus-n00519" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00519</span></a>] and 293 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-vision-of-medea-n00513" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00513</span></a>]]. Those pictures were exhibited in Rome in some rooms which Turner subsequently occupied at the Quattro Fontane. The foreign artists who went to see them could make nothing of them’. However, Eastlake reported a more mixed reception in a letter to England in February 1829: ‘More than a thousand persons went to see his works when exhibited, so you can imagine how astonished, enraged or delighted the different schools of artists were, at seeing things with methods so new, so daring and excellences so unequivocal. The angry critics have, I believe, talked most, and it is possible you may hear of <i>general</i> severity of judgment, but many did justice, and many more were fain to admire what they confessed they dared not imitate.’</p>
<p>Turner advertised in the <i>Diario di Roma</i> for 17 December 1828 that he was to exhibit ‘<i>due Paesaggi</i>’ for a week at the Palazzo Trulli. These John Gage identifies as <i>Orvieto</i> and <i>Regulus</i>, though it is known that <i>Medea</i> was on view on 17 December. In a letter of February 1829, Eastlake confirmed that Turner had exhibited these three works, as well as having begun ‘eight or ten pictures’ (for a later letter by Eastlake, see No. 328a).</p>
<p>A number of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>paintings</span></a> from the Turner Bequest are identical in their coarse <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a>, the form of the original stretcher, and the way in which the canvas was fastened to the stretcher (with upholsterer's sprigs) to <i>Orvieto</i> and <i>Medea</i> (<i>Regulus</i> is on a similar canvas, but has lost its original stretcher and form of attachment). These are the three figure subjects, Nos. 296 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-reclining-venus-n05498" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05498</span></a>], 297 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-two-recumbent-nude-figures-n05517" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05517</span></a>] and 298 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-outline-of-a-venus-pudica-n05509" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05509</span></a>], and <i>Southern <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>Landscape</span></a></i>, No. 299 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-southern-landscape-n05510" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05510</span></a>]. Other works probably from the group are Nos. 300 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-southern-landscape-with-an-aqueduct-and-waterfall-n05506" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05506</span></a>] and 301 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-italian-landscape-probably-civita-di-bagnoregio-n05473" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05473</span></a>]. Other candidates for works begun in Rome are the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> sketches on a similar though even rather coarser canvas, Nos. 302–17; see p. 160. These sketches, and one of the larger unfinished pictures (No. 300), shows signs of having been rolled, presumably for ease of despatch to London. Both types of coarse canvas would seem to be Italian in origin, presumably purchased in Rome. Probably also from this trip are the smaller sketches on millboard. Nos. 318–27.</p>
<p>Turner had in fact written from Paris on II August 1828 to Charles Eastlake, who was already in Rome, asking him to secure one or two canvases, 59 1/4 × 98 1/2 in., so that he could begin straight away on a landscape for Lord Egremont. This is generally held to be <i>Palestrina</i> (No. 295 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-palestrina-composition-n06283" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N06283</span></a>]), which measures 55 1/4 × 98 in. but is in fact on a fine canvas.</p>
<p>Turner himself reported his progress in a letter to Sir Francis Chantrey of 6 November 1828: ‘I have confined myself to the painting department...and having finished <i>one</i>, am about the second, and getting on with Lord E's [presumably <i>Palestrina</i>], which I began the very first touch at Rome; but as folk here talked that I would show them <i>not</i>, I finished a small three feet four to stop their gabbling’; this last was presumably <i>Orvieto</i>.</p>
<p>Eastlake's account in Thornbury goes on, ‘When those same works were packed to be sent to England, I advised him to have the cover covered with waxed cloth, as the pictures without it might be exposed to wet. Turner thanked me, and said the advice was important; “for”, he added, “if any wet gets to them, they will be destroyed.” This indicates his practice of preparing his pictures with a kind of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/t/tempera" title="Glossary definition for 'Tempera'"><span>tempera</span></a>, a method which, before the surface was varnished, was not waterproof [in fact analysis has not revealed any tempera, though Turner did quite often use <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a> on his oils and in at least one case, No. 300, a picture apparently from this group seems to have suffered losses to its water-soluble glazes]. The pictures referred to were in fact not finished; nor could any of his exhibited pictures be said to be finished till he had worked on them when they were on the walls of the Royal <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/academy" title="Glossary definition for 'Academy'"><span>Academy</span></a>’. This is supported by the review of <i>Orvieto</i> in the <i>Morning Chronicle</i> for 3 May 1830 quoted under <i>Pilate washing his Hands</i> (No. 332 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-pilate-washing-his-hands-n00510" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00510</span></a>]). Although Turner had hoped that his Rome paintings would reach London in time for the 1829 Exhibition, there were shipping delays and <i>Orvieto</i> and <i>Palestrina</i> were not exhibited until 1830, nor <i>Medea</i> until 1831; <i>Regulus</i> was not exhibited until 1837.</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Thornbury 1862, i, p. 221; 1877, p. 100; Finberg 1961, pp. 307–11; Gage 1968, pp. 679–80; Gage 1980, pp. 118–20, 125, 127, 132.</p>
<p><b>Nos. 292–5: Exhibited Pictures</b></p>
<p><b>292. </b>[<span>N00511</span>]<b> View of Orvieto, painted in Rome</b> 1828; reworked 1830</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (511)</p>
<p>Canvas, 36 × 48 1/2 (91·5 × 123)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (81, ‘Orvieto’ 4'0" × 3'0"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1919.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> Rome 1828–9; R.A. 1830 (30); Amsterdam, Berne, Paris, Brussels, Liege (29), Venice and Rome (32) 1947–8; Arts Council tour 1952 (12, repr.); <i>Italian Art and Britain</i> R.A., January–March 1960 (217); Cologne (57, repr.), Rome (58, repr.) and Warsaw (57, repr.) 1966–7; <i>The Art of Claude Lorrain</i> Hayward Gallery, November–December 1969 (140); R.A. 1974–5 (472); Hague 1978–9 (x, repr. in colour); Munich 1979–80 (359, repr.); Paris 1983–4 (42, repr.); Birmingham 1984.</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Ruskin 1857 (1903–12, xiii, p. 139); Thornbury 1862, i, pp. 221, 224, 307; 1877, pp. 100, 440; D. Laing, <i>Etchings by Sir David Wilkie</i>
1875, pp. 21–2; Hamerton 1879, pp. 220–22; Bell 1901, p. 112 no. 165; Armstrong 1902, pp. 120, 146, 165–6, 226; Whitley 1930, pp. 159, 192; R.B. Gotch, <i>Maria, Lady Callcott</i> 1937, pp. 279–80; Falk 1938, p. 131; Davies 1946, p. 187; Finberg 1961, pp. 310–11, 321, 490 no. 348; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, p. 38; Gage 1968, pp. 679–80; Gage 1969, pp. 104, 165, 247 nn. 143–4; Herrmann 1975, pp. 35–6, 232, pl. 124; Wilton 1979, p. 165, pl. 178; Gage 1980, p. 120; Ziff 1980, p. 169; Kitson 1983, p. 13.</p>
<p>One of the pictures painted and exhibited by Turner in Rome, and presumably the ‘small three foot four’ painted to stop folk ‘gabbling’ (see p. 170). There is a small composition sketch with five other subjects on a page in the ‘Viterbo and Ronciglione’ sketchbook, used by Turner on the 1828–9 visit to Italy (CCXXXVI-25, bottom left). Another similar view is on p. 32, repr. Alberto Satolli, ‘L'imagine di Orvieto nei disegni’, <i>Orvieto fuori d'Orvieto nella prima metà dell'800</i>, 1978, pl. 36; other drawings done at Orvieto, from the ‘Florence to Orvieto’ sketchbook (CCXXXIV) are repr. pls. 37, 38, 42–57, 59–61. For a colour repr. of a copy of No. 292 [<span>N00511</span>] made by Edoardo Gioja in 1930 and now in the Opera del Duomo, Orvieto, see <i>ibid.</i>, pl. 40; another copy by Umberto Prencipe of the same year is in the Grand Hotel Reale, Orvieto.</p>
<p>Jerrold Ziff suggests that the prominent well on the right of the picture may have been influenced by some lines in Roger's <i>Italy</i> (1836 ed., p. 175).</p>
<p>That this picture was partly overpainted at the R.A. in 1830 is suggested by the review in the <i>Morning Chronicle</i> for 3 May 1830 quoted under <i>Pilate washing his Hands</i>, No. 332, though in fact <i>Orvieto</i> is much more thinly painted, and apparently much less gone over, than <i>Pilate</i>. Neither the <i>Morning Chronicle</i> nor the <i>Morning Herald</i> for 18 May had any praise for <i>Orvieto</i>, the latter apparently dismissing it as one of ‘two other production by the same artist, in which gaudiness is the only cause of their being looked at’.</p>
<p>Until the canvas was relined in 1958 it was fastened to the original canvas by long bent-over sprigs similar to those found on other pictures painted in Rome 1828–9, for instance Nos. 293 [<span>N00513</span>].</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, <i>The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner</i>, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-22T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults architecture bridge bridges and viaducts cities, towns, villages (non-UK) countries and continents domestic fine arts and music hill instrument, lute Italy landscape laundering mist objects Orvieto - non-specific people places river townscape, distant townscapes / man-made features tree valley water: inland weather well woman work and occupations