Joseph Mallord William Turner

For the various versions in this sketchbook of an ancient seaport with figures embarking or landing, see note to folio 1 (D05491). Of the present example Hill observes: ‘Very Claudian, as many of these studies are, and anticipating the Carthage pictures of a decade later’ – Dido Building Carthage and The Decline of Carthage exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1815 and 1817 (National Gallery, London and Tate N00499).1 However, the composition is a coloured version of the monochrome sketch on folio 34 (D05541) which Turner’s inscription associates with the return of the daughter of Chryses, from Homer’s Iliad.