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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Oxford c.1787-91 > Oxford and Other Subjects > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Neptune and Britannia c.1790-1

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Neptune and Britannia’ c.1790-1
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Neptune and Britannia c.1790–1
D00716
Turner Bequest XXIX K
Pen and black ink ?and pencil on thin laid card, 112 x 142 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink ‘No1’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XXIX K’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The figure of Neptune derives from the famous episode ‘Quos Ego ...’ in the first book of Virgil’s Aeneid (I.135), where the sea-god subdues the winds with an uncompleted threat. Ortrud Westheider relates Turner’s drawing to Jean Daullée’s 1752 engraving and etching in reverse after Peter Paul Rubens’s (1577–1640) painting Quos Ego! – Neptune Calming the Waves of 1635 (Gemäldegalerie Ante Meister, Dresden).1
Turner has simplified Rubens’s busy composition, restricting the figures to those of Neptune (shown reversed relative to the painting, as in Daullée’s engraving), a wind god above, and a new figure, Britannia, with her helmet, shield and trident, succouring an indistinct fourth figure.
Turner’s inscription ‘No1’ suggests this as the first of a series of allegorical ideas; compare his study of a winged horse (Tate D40210; Turner Bequest III Eb). Turner may have been intending a series in the popular patriotic mode of the 1790s, following the model of P.J. de Loutherbourg (1740–1812), who made allegorical designs for patriotic trophies to be engraved.
1
Westheider 2011, pp.12–13 figs.1–3 respectively.
Verso:
Blank; a red paint blot; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
October 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Neptune and Britannia c.1790–1 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2012, 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-neptune-and-britannia-r1140112, accessed 26 April 2024.