J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

This is the first of seven illustrations that Turner produced for ‘The Voyage of Columbus’, a miniature epic poem which is the final work in the published volume of Rogers’s Poems. The poem purports to be a translation of a sixteenth-century Castilian manuscript found at the Convent of la Rabida in Palos, Spain. Writing in the voice of a medieval chronicler, Rogers describes Columbus as a noble Christian hero who brought the light of revelation to the benighted peoples of the Americas, heretofore governed by primitive evil spirits. The verses, replete with supernatural figures and references to the struggle of Christianity against paganism, inspired some of Turner’s most inventive and mysterious vignette illustrations. As Jan Piggott has observed, they were also particularly successful engravings, since the dramatic black and white palette effectively conveyed the struggle between light and darkness played out in Rogers’s text.1 The engraver for all of the prints was Edward Goodall.2

Columbus and his Son appeared in the 1834 edition of Poems as the head-piece to an introductory note meant to have been inscribed on the original manuscript.3 The note describes the hero’s arrival at the Convent of La Rabida to ask for some bread and water for his young son, Diego. Turner highlighted with pencil several lines in his own copy of the 1827 edition of Poems (see Tate D36330; Turner Bequest CCCLXVI pp.235–6):

However, the final vignette illustrates more closely a verse which does not appear in the earlier edition but which was added later:

In a footnote, Rogers explains that Columbus’s conversations with the Prior of the convent resolved him to seek a westward route to Asia. Turner’s illustration shows two monks welcoming Columbus and his son into the convent, with the great church and the monastery cloisters dominating the background. In the engraved version, one of the monks is shown giving bread and water to Diego, a gesture that is reminiscent of the administering of the Sacrament.4 It seems likely that the figures were redrawn by either Goodall or perhaps Thomas Stothard, the other artistic contributor to Poems.5 The convent is the site of both the first and last illustrations in the ‘Columbus’ series since the final vignette shows Cortes and Pizarro paying homage to Columbus in the church at La Rabida (see Tate D27709; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 192).

The seven illustrations to The Voyage of Columbus, in order of their appearance in Rogers’s text are: Tate D27705, D27706, D27714, D27707, D27708, D27719, D27709; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 188, 189, 197, 190, 191, 202, 192.

Verso:

Inscribed by unknown hands in pencil ‘NG’ along top and ‘2 no 1’ top centre and ‘25 | b’ centre and ‘CCLXXX.188’ bottom centre, and in red ink ‘1057’ top right, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXX 188’ centre