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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Thames sketchbooks c.1804-14 > Hesperides (1) Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Study of a Dragon: For 'The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides' 1805

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Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Verso:
Study of a Dragon: For ‘The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides’ 1805
D05771
Turner Bequest XCIII 3a
Pen and ink on white wove paper prepared with a grey wash, 171 x 262 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink ‘The Garden of the Hesperides’ lower centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
See note to folio 1 verso of the sketchbook (D05767) for its various sketches and studies related to The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides exhibited at the British Institution in 1806 (Tate N00477).1 Here Turner has drawn the dragon (Ladon, brother of the dragon slain by Jason when capturing the Golden Fleece) crouching on a mountain ridge as it does in the picture; Wilkinson describes it as ‘a particularly hideous serpent, containing all the features of current palaeontology’. This motif may also appear on folios 8 verso and 9 (D05780, D05781).

David Blayney Brown
October 2007

1
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.44–6 no.57 (pl.67).

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Study of a Dragon: For ‘The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides’ 1805 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2007, 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-study-of-a-dragon-for-the-goddess-of-discord-choosing-the-r1129992, accessed 27 April 2024.