Joseph Mallord William Turner Study for a Classical Landscape: Similar to 'Mercury and Herse' 1805
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 58 Verso:
Study for a Classical Landscape: Similar to ‘Mercury and Herse’ 1805
D05584
Turner Bequest XC 58a
Turner Bequest XC 58a
Pen and ink on off-white wove paper, prepared with a grey wash, 258 x 150 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry) top centre
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry) top centre
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.236, XC 58a, as ‘Study for a classical picture’.
1984
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.81.
1987
Andrew Wilton, Turner in his Time, London 1987, pp.69–70.
1990
Kathleen Nicholson, Turner’s Classical Landscapes: Myth and Meaning, Princeton 1990, p.316 reproduced pl.14.
1993
David Hill, Turner on the Thames: River Journeys in the Year 1805, New Haven and London 1993, pp.162–3.
1997
Anthony Bailey, Standing in the Sun: A Life of J.M.W. Turner, London 1997, pp.91–2.
2010
David Blayney Brown, ‘Empire and Exile; Vergil and Romantic Art’, in Joseph Farrell and Michael C.J. Putnam eds., A Companion to Vergil’s ‘Aeneid’ and its Tradition, Chichester 2010, p.314.
Turner’s inscription (which Finberg and Wilton credit to folio 59, D05585) lists other possible subjects: ‘Eneas and Evander | Pallas & Aenas, departing from Evander | Return of the Argo’. The first two are from Virgil’s Aeneid, Book 7: the encounter of Aeneas, while on his journey up the Tiber to fulfil his destiny in founding Rome, with Evander who greets him and forms an alliance; and Aeneas departing for war with Evander’s son Pallas. The third alternative is from the Argonautics of Apollonius Rhodius, and indicates the return of Jason with the captured Golden Fleece; for Turner’s source, and for a possible drawing of ‘Jason & Argonauts on Board bearing the Fleece’ see folio 49 verso (D05568).
In some verses in the Perspective sketchbook used several years later (Tate D07393: Turner Bequest CVIII 25) Turner describes the launching of ‘my dear Argo’:
She goes she goes then let her go
Long as the Thames shall flow
O Goddess bless the ship Argo
Long as the Thames shall flow
O Goddess bless the ship Argo
This has led to speculation that he named his own boat, used for sailing on the Thames, Argo.2
David Blayney Brown
February 2010
How to cite
David Blayney Brown, ‘Study for a Classical Landscape: Similar to ‘Mercury and Herse’ 1805 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www