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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Vignette watercolours c.1826-1843 > Watercolours Related to Samuel Rogers's ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Tornaro, for Rogers's 'Poems' c.1830-2

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Tornaro, for Rogers's 'Poems'’ c.1830-2
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Tornaro, for Rogers’s ‘Poems’ circa 1830–2
D27689
Turner Bequest CCLXXX 172
Pencil and watercolour, approximately 190 x 170 mm on white wove paper, 287 x 238 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXX 172’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This vignette, Tornaro, was published in the 1834 edition of Rogers’s Poems, as an illustration to a poem entitled ‘Human Life’.1 The engraver was Robert Wallis.2 The image appears beneath the following lines in Rogers’s poem:
The shepherd on Tornaro’s misty brow,
And the swart seaman, sailing far below,
Not undelighted watch the morning ray
Purpling the orient – till it breaks away,
And burns and blazes into glorious day!
(Poems, p.80)
Tornaro is unusual among the designs for Poems due to its large size and highly finished execution. The landscape is almost certainly an imaginary one, although Ruskin observed that ‘in the colour of the sea and boldness of precipice, [it] resembles only the scenery of the Sicilian islands’.3 The contrast between the small shepherd seated at the edge of the vertiginous cliff highlights the sublime qualities of this scene. The jewel-like palette, brilliant light effects, and delicate brushwork make this one of Turner’s most striking and evocative vignettes.
Several watercolour studies for vignettes have been linked with this work in the past (see Tate D27606, D27603 and D27619; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 86, 89 and 102). However, the relationship is not confirmed.
1
Samuel Rogers, Poems, London 1834, p.80.
2
W.G. Rawlinson, The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., vol.II, London 1913, no.381. There are two impressions in Tate’s collection (T06164 and T06644).
3
Quoted in Townsend, Wilton, Brown and others 1998, p.128.
Verso:
Inscribed by unknown hands in pencil ‘16’ top centre and ‘17’ (encircled) centre and ‘CCLXXX 172’ bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXX 172’ lower centre

Meredith Gamer
August 2006

How to cite

Meredith Gamer, ‘Tornaro, for Rogers’s ‘Poems’ c.1830–2 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2006, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-tornaro-for-rogerss-poems-r1133347, accessed 21 November 2024.