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

Provenance:
...
Henry Vaughan, probably after 1878

Engraved:
Etching and mezzotint by Turner and Thomas Hodgetts, ‘From Spenser’s Fairy Queen’, published Turner, [?1] June 1811

The Faerie Queene, first published in 1590 and 1596, was the major work of the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser (circa 1552–1599). Stopford Brooke suggested that, although there was no precise textual source for the action of the seated figure, Turner’s Liber Studiorum composition may have been inspired by the landscape imagery of the poem, describing the setting of the cave of Despair:1

Brooke explored the landscape imagery at length, to demonstrate its appropriateness for the grim subject; he noted the tree on the right (the left as engraved), ‘whose sinuous strength is wrought out inch by inch by the artist, and whose top, in symbol of the horror and crying of Despair, ends like the open mouth of a dragon.’3 Similar observations have been made concerning the trees surrounding the monster’s lair in Jason (see entry on Liber drawing, Tate D08106; Turner Bequest CXVI E).

Gillian Forrester has also considered the episode as the basis for Turner’s treatment: the Redcrosse Knight (symbolic of St George, England’s patron saint)4 is abandoned and weakened at this stage, though later recovers sufficiently to kill a dragon. Forrester has speculated on a further level of meaning, ‘as an allegory of the condition of England during the wars with Napoleon’, the constant background to most of the period of the Liber’s production.5

The composition is recorded, as ‘5[:] 5 Spenser Fairy Queen’, in the Liber Notes (2) sketchbook (Tate D12157; Turner Bequest CLIV (a) 24), in a draft schedule of the first ten parts of the Liber (D12156–D12158; CLIV (a) 23a–24a)6 dated by Finberg and Forrester to before the middle of 1808.7 It also appears later in the sketchbook, again as ‘Spenser Fairy Queen’, in a list of ‘Historical’ subjects (Tate D12170; Turner Bequest CLIV (a) 30a).8

The Liber Studiorum etching and mezzotint engraving, etched by Turner and engraved (in reverse) by Thomas Hodgetts, bears the publication date June 1811 and was issued to subscribers as ‘From Spenser’s Fairy Queen’ in part 7 (Rawlinson/Finberg nos.32–36;9 see also Tate D08136, D08137, D08138; Turner Bequest CXVII I, J, K). Tate holds impressions of the preliminary outline etching (Tate A00982) and the published engraving (A00983). It is one of eight published Liber Studiorum subjects in Turner’s ‘Historical’ category (see also Tate D08106, D08120, D08144, D08149, D08162, D08166, D08169; Turner Bequest CXVI E, CXVII P, CXVIII H, L, O, Vaughan Bequest CXVI S, CXVII U), albeit the only one which ‘refers directly to a British poet’.10

Turner appears to have returned to Spenser in an indistinct oil painting now known as The Cave of Despair, circa 1835 (Tate N05522),11 perhaps drawing on elements of the episode depicted in the Liber, and other aspects of the story. Butlin and Joll have suggested that the upright painting Mountain Glen, Perhaps with Diana and Actaeon, circa 1835–40 (Tate N00561),12 is related to the Liber composition, but close similarities are limited to the shapes of the two tree trunks (corresponding to those in the ‘reversed’ print, rather than the present Liber drawing), although the mountains framed between them in the painting are comparable in general formation to those beyond the chasm in the Liber design.

The present work was probably not acquired by Henry Vaughan until after 1878.13

Technical notes:

The materials used for this design are very similar to those used for Procris and Cephalus, another Liber composition of around the same date (Tate D08144; Turner Bequest CXVII P); Forrester has suggested that they may have been intended as a pair.1 The paper was not washed initially. Pencil drawing, washes and curly brushstrokes of watercolour were used in turn, with more scratching-out than in the Procris. The overall very warm brown colour is due to a combination of Indian red and umber pigments.2

Verso:

Blank, save for inscriptions.

Inscribed in pencil ‘CXVII L | Pl 36’ top left and ‘D.08139’ bottom left
Stamped in black ‘[crown] | N•G | CXVII – L’ bottom left