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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > East Sussex c.1806-20 > Hints River Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Study for 'The Decline the Carthaginian Empire' c.1815-17

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Study for 'The Decline the Carthaginian Empire'’ c.1815-17
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 32 Verso:
Study for ‘The Decline the Carthaginian Empire’ circa 1815–17
D10640
Turner Bequest CXLI 32a
Pencil on white wove paper, 88 x 114 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the sketchbook inverted and continued on folio 33 (D10641) this study is very badly rubbed, especially in this half of the composition. However Finberg was surely right to link it to The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire (Tate N00499)1 exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1817. The composition is especially close in D10641, including the group of trees alongside the harbour at the centre of the picture and the round building on the left. Ideas for a classical arcade and buildings on a hill running from folio 30 verso to the recto of the present leaf (D10636–D10639) are probably also related, though more distantly.
There is a composition study for the picture in the Yorkshire 1 sketchbook (Tate D11032; Turner Bequest CXLIV 101a) and further sketches and related verse are in the Richmond Hill; Hastings to Margate sketchbook (Tate D10555; Turner Bequest CXL 73a).

David Blayney Brown
July 2011

1
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.100–1 no.135 (pl.137).

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Study for ‘The Decline the Carthaginian Empire’ c.1815–17 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2011, 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-for-the-decline-the-carthaginian-empire-r1131693, accessed 23 April 2024.