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 (2) Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Birth of Adonis 1805

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Birth of Adonis’ 1805
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 18 Recto:
The Birth of Adonis 1805
D05870
Turner Bequest XCIV 18
Pen and ink and brown wash on white wove paper, prepared with a grey wash, 143 x 228 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘18’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘XCIV 18’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
See note to folio 17 of the sketchbook (D05869) for which as Hill suggests this must be an alternative idea. In it, the action is moved to the centre of the composition, the setting is changed from the outskirts of a city to a riverside wood and the transformation of Adonis’s mother Myrrha into a tree seems further advanced.
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
December 2007

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘The Birth of Adonis 1805 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 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-the-birth-of-adonis-r1130093, accessed 25 April 2024.