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

The Villa Barberini, Rome

1794 - 1797

Primary Image: TG0559: Thomas Girtin (1775–1802) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), after (?) John Robert Cozens (1752–97), The Villa Barberini, Rome, 1794–97, graphite, watercolour and pen and ink on wove paper, 26.5 × 37.7 cm, 10 ⅜ × 14 ⅞ in. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (B1975.4.1422).

Photo courtesy of Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (Public Domain)

Description
Creator(s)
Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after (?) John Robert Cozens (1752-1797)
Title
  • The Villa Barberini, Rome
Date
1794 - 1797
Medium and Support
Graphite and watercolour on wove paper
Dimensions
26.5 × 37.7 cm, 10 ⅜ × 14 ⅞ in
Inscription

'38/64 Back of [ . . . ] Villa | [ . . . ] at Rome' on the back

Object Type
Collaborations; Monro School Copy
Subject Terms
Italian View: Modern Rome

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0559
Description Source(s)
Viewed in 2001 and May 2025

Provenance

John Baskett, 1969; bought by Paul Mellon (1907–99); presented to the Center, 1975

Exhibition History

New Haven, 1980, no.176 as ’Buildings overlooking water - near Naples(?)’ by ’Monro School: Thomas Girtin and J. M. W. Turner(?)’; New Haven, 1986a, no.111 as ’Buildings Overlooking Water, near Naples’ by Thomas Girtin and Joseph Mallord William Turner

About this Work

This unusual view of the Villa Barberini on the Janiculum Hill in Rome displays many of the signs that mark the unique collaboration between Girtin and his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) at the home of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833). Here they 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

<i>The Villa Barberini, Rome</i>, graphite on paper, unknown measurements. Cleveland Museum of Art (1989.13.i)

A watercolour that has been identified as ‘Buildings Overlooking Water, near Naples’ turns out to represent the Villa Barberini in Rome following the discovery of a drawing by Franz Joseph Heinrich Nadorp (1794–1876) which is inscribed with the name of the building (see figure 1). The location of the building defeated the best efforts of generations of scholars for a number of reasons, not least the fact that the villa was largely destroyed in 1849 following which the hillside gardens were built over. Artists who visited the Janiculum Hill in any case tended to bypass the villa seeking out the more attractive view looking south from the gardens over St Peter’s as Turner himself would do when he visited Rome for the first time in 1819 (Turner Bequest CLXXXIX 21). The source for the Monro school drawing has not been traced, but again it is likely to have been an outline drawing by John Robert Cozens (1752–97) probably made on his first trip to Italy. A watercolour of the Villa Lante on the Janiculum Hill dates from 1780 (Andrew Wyld, 2011, no.14) and it too shows a starkly silhouetted building side on and viewed through trees and vegetation. The erroneous interpretation of the building as ‘overlooking water’ perhaps stemmed from a misinterpretation by Girtin of his source; an outline drawing with an area of paper left untouched in front of the walls suggested a defensive position above a river or lake.

Ascertaining the division of labour within many Monro School subject is often fraught with ambiguities. However, just enough of the pencil work shows through to suggest that Girtin may well have been involved in the work’s production, albeit at the most functional level. If anything, the washes are even more perfunctory, and it is hard to believe that Turner would have rendered the walls with such unmediated and flat areas of colour. It is possible, however, that the work is simply not finished and that time caught up with the artist; thus, it may be that a drawing that was left incomplete at the end of a night’s work was not taken up again the following week. Therefore, variations in the quality of the Monro School works, which can indeed be very great, do not always mean that we should be looking to attribute them to lesser artists: the amount of labour that Turner and Girtin were able to invest in a work is a crucial factor too.

by Greg Smith

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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