This picture exemplifies Turner’s achievement in the Sublime, combining personal experience with complex historical and literary associations. The picture originated in observations of a storm in Yorkshire, though it represents Hannibal’s invasion of Italy in 218BC. Turner does not show the General himself, but focuses instead on the distress of Hannibal’s army. He thus aims at a universal, pessimistic vision of mankind, a theme Turner elaborated in poetry written to accompany this work. Nonetheless, the picture invites a contemporary parallel, between Hannibal and Napoleon, who had crossed the Alps to invade Italy in 1797.