Joseph Mallord William Turner The Deluge c.1815
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Deluge circa 1815
D08178
Vaughan Bequest CXVIII X
Vaughan Bequest CXVIII X
Watercolour on white wove lightweight writing paper, 204 x 284 mm
Watermark ‘J Whatman | 1807’
Watermark ‘J Whatman | 1807’
Bequeathed by Henry Vaughan 1900
Provenance:
...
F. Halsted
...
Henry Vaughan by 1872
...
F. Halsted
...
Henry Vaughan by 1872
Exhibition history
1872
Turner’s Liber Studiorum, Containing Choice Impressions of the First States, Etchings, Touched Proofs, together with the Unpublished Plates, and a Few Original Drawings for the Work, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London 1872 (103).
1904
National Gallery, London, various dates to at least 1904 (869).
1921
The Liber Studiorum by Turner: Drawings, Etchings, and First State Mezzotint Engravings with Some Additional Engravers’ Proofs and 51 of the Original Copperplates, National Gallery, Millbank [Tate Gallery], London, November 1921–November 1922 (not in catalogue).
1922
Original Drawings, Etchings, Mezzotints, and Copperplates for the “Liber Studiorum” by J.M.W. Turner, R.A., Whitworth Institute Art Galleries, Manchester, December 1922–March 1923 (not in catalogue).
1980
Turner and the Sublime, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, November 1980–January 1981, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, February–April 1981, British Museum, London, May–September 1981 (47, reproduced).
2001
William Turner: Licht und Farbe, Museum Folkwang, Essen, September 2001–January 2002, Kunsthaus Zürich, February–May 2002 (122, reproduced in colour).
Engraved:
(see main catalogue entry)
(see main catalogue entry)
References
1872
[J.E. Taylor and Henry Vaughan], Exhibition Illustrative of Turner’s Liber Studiorum, Containing Choice Impressions of the First States, Etchings, Touched Proofs, together with the Unpublished Plates, and a Few Original Drawings for the Work, exhibition catalogue, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London 1872, p.50.
1878
W[illiam] G[eorge] Rawlinson, Turner’s Liber Studiorum, A Description and a Catalogue, London 1878, p.166 under no.88.
1904
E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn eds., Library Edition: The Works of John Ruskin: Volume XIII: Turner: The Harbours of England; Catalogues and Notes, London 1904, pp.269, 635, 645 no.869.
1906
W[illiam] G[eorge] Rawlinson, Turner’s Liber Studiorum, A Description and a Catalogue. Second Edition, Revised Throughout, London 1906, p.193 under no.88.
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.324, CXVIII X (Vaughan Bequest).
1911
Liber Studiorum: J.M.W. Turner: Miniature Edition Containing Reproductions (I.) from First Published State of the Seventy-One Published Plates, and (II.) of the Original Drawings for, or Engraver’s Proofs of, All the Unpublished Plates as the Artist Left Them, London and Glasgow 1911, reproduced p.109 no.88.
1921
Untitled typescript list of works relating to 1921 and 1922 Liber Studiorum exhibitions, [circa 1921], Tate exhibition files, Tate Archive TG 92/9/2, p.5.
1924
Alexander J. Finberg, The History of Turner’s Liber Studiorum with a New Catalogue Raisonné, London 1924, reproduced p.[352], p.353 under no.88.
1938
Martin Hardie, The Liber Studiorum Mezzotints of Sir Frank Short, R.A., P.R.E. after J.M.W. Turner, R.A. Catalogue & Introduction, London 1938, p.68.
1974
Gerald Wilkinson, The Sketches of Turner, R.A. 1802–20: Genius of the Romantic, London 1974, reproduced p.119.
1977
Jean Selz, Turner, Naefels 1977, reproduced p.77.
1977
Gerald Wilkinson, Turner Sketches 1789–1820, London 1977, reproduced p.124.
1980
Andrew Wilton, Turner and the Sublime, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto 1980, pp.136, 137.
1984
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.43.
1996
Gillian Forrester, Turner’s ‘Drawing Book’: The Liber Studiorum, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1996, pp.15, 24 note 82, p.154 no.88i, reproduced, pp.158, 160, 163.
Turner’s design, engraved for the Liber Studiorum but not published, was based on his large painting The Deluge, possibly exhibited at his gallery in 1805, and shown at the Royal Academy in 1813, after which it remained in his studio (Tate N00493).1 The episode derives from the Biblical account of the Flood and Noah’s escape in the ark,2 seen beyond the trees to the left in the painting, concentrating on the passage in which ‘all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.’3 Turner was influenced by the dismal gloom of the 1660s version of the subject by Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), which he had studied on his Continental tour of 1802 (Musée du Louvre, Paris);4 the figures (as depicted in the painting and in modified form in the Liber engraving, though barely indicated in the present drawing) may have derived from earlier Venetian models such as Titian (circa 1487–1576) and Veronese (1528–1588).5
The drawing is a very free transcription of the oil, concentrating on the storm and flood waters; of more than a dozen figures clinging to dry land in the right foreground of the painting only two are clearly transcribed, while the roof timbers in the centre of the original composition and the similar number of figures struggling in the waves on and around them are omitted altogether. The rocky outcrops top left and right are freely developed from the painting, as is the single, windswept tree. The distant pitched roof in the centre is perhaps intended as that of the ark, but in the subsequent mezzotint the shape becomes a mountain, and the ark is shown (as in the painting) beyond the tree, perhaps prompted by two fortuitous blots at that point in the drawing.
The composition is noted, as ‘Deluge’, with other ‘Historical’ Liber subjects inside the back cover of the Tabley Sketchbook, No.1 of about 1808 (Tate D40721; Turner Bequest CIII).6 It also appears, again as ‘Deluge’, in a list of ‘Historical’ subjects in the Liber Notes (2) sketchbook (Tate D12171; Turner Bequest CLIV (a) 31); these notes (D12160–D12171; CLIV (a) 25a–31) were apparently made between 1808 and as late as 1818.7 It is noted again, as ‘Deluge’, in a list (now rubbed and difficult to decipher) of Liber works in progress around 1817–18 inside the back cover of the Aesacus and Hesperie sketchbook (Tate D40933; Turner Bequest CLXIX).8
Only one contemporary proof of the engraving is known, carried out entirely in mezzotint without the etched outline customary in earlier Liber plates; more impressions were printed after Turner’s death. The print is usually attributed to Turner alone, although Finberg suggested that Henry Dawe, one of Turner’s regular Liber engravers, might have had a hand in it,9 but the absence of a more detailed drawing and the reintroduction – and significant modification – of figures from the painting suggest Turner working closely from the painting himself.
Between 1936 and 1938, Frank Short etched and mezzotinted this composition,11 as one of his interpretations of the unpublished Liber plates (Tate does not hold any impressions; see general Liber introduction).
Technical notes:
The sheet has been identified as once being part of the Studies for Liber sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CXV),1 other pages of which also bear the ‘J Whatman | 1807’ watermark; as it has been trimmed to the image as engraved (intact pages in the sketchbook being 230 x 381 mm), it is not possible to establish its original location in the book by matching it to the stubs that remain there. Washes were followed by brushstrokes, medium-rich and applied wet. The overall colour is a cool brown, comprising one umber pigment.2 The distant mountainside is partly composed of almost arbitrary blots, and several rapid strokes in the sky echo the dynamics of the storm in the painting.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions.
Inscribed in pencil ‘CXVIII X | Pl 88’ top left, ‘88’ bottom left, and ‘The Deluge | JMW Turner R.A. | F. Halsted’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘[crown] | N•G | CXVIII – X’ bottom left
Stamped in black ‘[crown] | N•G | CXVIII – X’ bottom left
There are some slight marks bleeding through from the most heavily worked lines and washes of the recto.
Matthew Imms
May 2006
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘The Deluge c.1815 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2006, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www