The Temple of the Sibyl/Temple of Vesta at Tivoli

The Temple of the Sibyl/Temple of Vesta at Tivoli

ca. 1752-1756
Adolf Friedrich Harper
1725–1806
Black chalk with stump and heightened with white chalk on gray paper
13⅞ x 16⅜ inches (35.1 x 41.6 cm)

The so-called Temple of the Sibyl (or Temple of Vesta) at Tivoli, erected toward the end of the Roman republic in the early first century BCE, was one of the most frequently drawn sites in the Roman Campagna. Compared to Harper’s other presentation drawings such as The Temple of Minerva, it remains a little unfinished in such details as the tree growing out of the temple entrance, the architecture in the background on the left side, and parts of the foreground. In a more finished drawing Harper would have completed the sky with white chalk, and so it is probably a plein-air drawing at a fairly advanced stage, of a kind that Harper would have brought back to the studio for further elaboration.

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Graphische Sammlung