'Vignette Study for Moore's 'The Epicurean'; Alciphron and the Spectre', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Vignette Study for Moore's 'The Epicurean'; Alciphron and the Spectre

From Watercolours Related to Thomas Moore, The Epicurean, a Tale, and Alciphron

Date c.1836-7

MediumGraphite and watercolour on paper

Dimensionssupport: 381 x 294 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Reference

D27647

Turner Bequest CCLXXX 130

View this artwork by appointment, at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Vignette Study for Moore’s ‘The Epicurean’; Alciphron and the Spectre circa 1836–7

D27647
Turner Bequest CCLXXX 130

Pencil and watercolour, approximately 95 x 73 mm on three-ply laminated Foolscap Bristol drawing board, 381 x 294 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘130’ bottom right
Inscribed by an unknown hand in pencil ‘CCLXXX’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXX 130’ bottom right

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Exhibition history

References

This sketch belongs to a large group of preliminary studies which relate to Turner’s vignette illustrations for John Macrone’s 1839 edition of Thomas Moore’s The Epicurean, a Tale: and Alciphron, a Poem. The study shares the same size, palette, and style as five other works in this group, suggesting that Turner produced them all at around the same time (see Tate D27648–D27651, D27655; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 131–134, and 138).

Here, Turner is illustrating a critical moment in Moore’s fantastical tale, The Epicurean, when, following a great festival, the hero Alciphron is overcome by a melancholy awareness of his own mortality. Resting beneath a statue of Venus, he prays for eternal life and pleasure:

The moon was still up, the morning had not yet glimmered, and the calm glories of the night rested on all around. Unconscious whither my pathway led, I wandered along, till I, at length, found myself before that fair statue of Venus ... Leaning against the pedestal of the statue, I raised my eyes to the heaven, and fixing them sadly and intently on the ever-burning stars, as if I sought to read the mournful secret in their light, asked, wherefore was it that Man alone must fade and perish, while they, so much less wonderful, less godlike than he, thus live on in radiance unchangeable for ever!
(Thomas Moore, The Epicurean, 1839, p.10)

Alciphron falls into a deep slumber and is approached by the spirit of an ‘ancient and venerable’ man who instructs him to go to Egypt in order to find eternal life. The watercolour depicts the hero kneeling at the foot of the statue of Venus, the full moon hanging low behind him illuminating the pale shapes of the pyramids in the background. Behind him, the spectre emerges bearing a candle. Jan Piggott has also linked the image to part of Moore’s accompanying poem, Alciphron:1

Sleep came then o’er me, – and I seem’d
To be transported far away
To a bleak desert plain, where gleam’d
One single, melancholy ray,
Throughout that darkness dimly shed
From a small taper in the hand
Of one, who pale as are the dead,
Before me took his spectral stand
(Thomas Moore, Alciphron, 1839, p.7)

Like many of Turner’s designs for Thomas Moore, this subject was ultimately not chosen for publication.

Piggott 1993, p.90.

Technical notes:
Like many of Turner’s studies for Moore’s The Epicurean, this sketch has been made on three-ply Bristol board, a type of board sold by most artists’ colourmen. The support exhibits three watermarks, ‘Slade | 1836’, and a circular blind embossed stamp, ‘Bristol | [image of crown] | Board’ top left. The board has been laminated with handmade paper which has been trimmed to Foolscap size (nominally 15 x 12 inches). Peter Bower has identified the maker as the William & Thomas Slade Mill, the papermakers who succeeded William Allee at Hurstbourne Priors Mill in Hampshire.1

Bower 1999, pp.120–1; for a general technical discussion of nineteenth-century boards see ibid., pp.114–17.

Verso:

Inscribed by unknown hands in pencil ‘AB 117 P | M’ top right, ascending right-hand edge and ‘132 | a’ centre right and ‘D27647’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXX 130’ bottom left

Meredith Gamer
August 2006

Read this catalogue entry in full

This catalogue entry is part of: David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, December 2012.