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Works Thomas Girtin and Joseph Mallord William Turner after (?) John Robert Cozens

An Architectural Composition, Based on the Milvian Bridge over the River Tiber

1794 - 1797

Primary Image: TG0553: Thomas Girtin (1775–1802) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), after (?) John Robert Cozens (1752–97), An Architectural Composition, Based on the Milvian Bridge over the River Tiber, 1794–97, graphite and watercolour on wove paper, on an early mount, 20.1 × 25.4 cm, 7 ⅞ × 10 in. Tate, Turner Bequest CCCLXXIII, 32 (D36445).

Photo courtesy of Tate (All Rights Reserved)

Description
Creator(s)
Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after (?) John Robert Cozens (1752-1797)
Title
  • An Architectural Composition, Based on the Milvian Bridge over the River Tiber
Date
1794 - 1797
Medium and Support
Graphite and watercolour on wove paper, on an early mount
Dimensions
20.1 × 25.4 cm, 7 ⅞ × 10 in
Mount Dimensions
36.3 × 49.5 cm, 14 ¼ × 19 ½ in
Inscription

'Ponte Mola' on the back, by Thomas Girtin (pasted down, but transcribed by a later hand on the lower right of the mount)

Part of
Object Type
Collaborations; Monro School Copy
Subject Terms
Italian View: Ancient Rome

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0553
Description Source(s)
Viewed in November 2017

Provenance

Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833); his posthumous sale, Christie's, 28 June 1833, lot 78 as ‘A book containing 62 interesting sketches in the neighbourhood of Rome and Naples, by Turner, in Indian ink and blue’; bought by Thomas Griffith on behalf of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), £21; accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest, 1856

Bibliography

Finberg, 1909, vol.2, p.1228 as '"Ponte Mola"' by Thomas Girtin; Turner Online as 'The Ponte Molle' by Joseph Mallord William Turner and Thomas Girtin (Accessed 07/09/2022)

About this Work

This view of the fortified northern end of the Milvian Bridge in Rome is one of three that are mounted in an album of watercolours bought by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) at the posthumous sale of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833) (the others being TG0554 and TG0555) (Exhibitions: Christie’s, 28 June 1833, lot 78). The sixty-four drawings were the outcome of a unique collaboration between Girtin and Turner working together at Monro’s London home at the Adelphi. Here the artists were employed across three winters, probably between 1794 and 1797, to make ‘finished drawings’ from the ‘Copies’ of the ‘outlines or unfinished drawings of Cozens’ and other artists, amateur and professional, either from Monro’s collection or lent for the purpose. As the two young artists later recalled, Girtin generally ‘drew in outlines and Turner washed in the effects’. ‘They went at 6 and staid till Ten’, which may account for the generally monochrome appearance of the works, and, as the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821) reported, Turner received ‘3s. 6d each night’, though ‘Girtin did not say what He had’ (Farington, Diary, 12 November 1798).1

As with the majority of the Italian views in Monro’s album, it has not been possible to trace the source of the work. However, even though only a small proportion of the sketches that John Robert Cozens (1752–97) made during his stay in Italy from November 1776 through to March 1779 survive, it is still likely that one of the numerous ‘outlines or unfinished drawings’ that he executed during his time in Rome provided the model here. Monro’s posthumous sale may have contained only a few sketches by Cozens, but, as Kim Sloan has argued, the patron must have borrowed outlines or tracings from purchasers at the auction of the artist’s work held in July 1794, which included twenty-seven ‘books of sketches’ and many hundreds of drawings made on his travels (Sloan and Joyner, 1993, pp.81–82).

The three Monro School views of the Milvian Bridge, known in Italian as the Ponte Molle, all show the northern end of the bridge with its defensive tower and bastions added to the Roman structure in the Middle Ages. However, this watercolour is not quite what it seems at first sight, as a comparison with the similar view of the bridge looking upriver illustrates (TG0555). Thus, although the form of the tower to the left is broadly the same, there are numerous changes to the structure: the square bastion to the right is omitted and replaced by an arch coming out at right angles to the bridge; the forms of the arches and the subsidiary structures between the tower and bastion are simplified to two openings; and, finally, the span to the right is removed altogether and a view through the large arch of part of the bridge stretching across the river is substituted instead. The Milvian Bridge was depicted by numerous artists in the eighteenth century and it is quite clear that TG0555 is an accurate representation of the structure as it then stood, which leaves us with two possible explanations for the bridge’s appearance in this watercolour. Either, as in the case of Castle of St Angelo (TG0451), Girtin misinterpreted a slight sketch and invented elements that were not clear in his source, or, having produced one accurate transcription of the bridge’s architecture for Monro, he made another that worked a series of variations on its main features. Given that the cumulative effect of all of the changes is to create a more monumental effect, I am inclined to favour the latter explanation in this case.

The album containing this drawing was sold in 1833 as the work of Turner, but the cataloguer of the Turner Bequest, Alexander Finberg, thought that Girtin alone was responsible for many of the watercolours, whilst more recently Andrew Wilton has established their joint authorship (Finberg, 1909, vol.2, p.1228; Wilton, 1984a, pp.8–23). Identifying the division of labour within Monro School drawings is considerably helped, as here, when the colour washes leave much of the pencil work showing through. An architectural subject generally requires a more detailed underdrawing than a landscape, and in this case Girtin’s inventive and fluent hand is clearly apparent under Turner’s economical use of a simple monochrome palette.

1794 - 1797

Rome: Part of the Milvian Bridge over the River Tiber (The Ponte Molle)

TG0554

1794 - 1797

Rome: The Fortified Northern End of the Milvian Bridge (The Ponte Molle)

TG0555

1794 - 1797

Rome: The Fortified Northern End of the Milvian Bridge (The Ponte Molle)

TG0555

1794 - 1797

Rome: The Fortified Northern End of the Milvian Bridge (The Ponte Molle)

TG0555

1794 - 1797

The Lake of Geneva, from Divonne

TG0451

by Greg Smith

Place depicted

Footnotes

  1. 1 The full diary entry, giving crucial details of the artists’ work at Monro’s house, is transcribed in the Documents section of the Archive (1798 – Item 2).

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