Tivoli: Temple of the Sibyl and the Roman Campagna (after Wilson)

The present copy of Wilson’s composition, which itself is now in the collection of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, belonged to Turner and may indeed be by him. Here, Turner has replicated faithfully Wilson’s cloud forms, buildings, and landscape, but omitted the figures and framing tree to the left. At the time Turner copied Wilson’s painting it may well have been owned by the drawing master and engraver John Laporte, the art tutor and close friend of Dr. Thomas Monro, at whose house in the Adelphi, London, Turner made copies after a number of landscape artists.