Turner’s inscription suggests alternative subjects for this upright classical composition, which has some resemblance to
Mercury and Herse, 1811 (on the London art market in 2005)
1 and should perhaps be compared with the variant sketches for it beginning on folio 57 of the sketchbook (
D05581). Neither that picture, nor
Dido and Aeneas, 1814 (Tate
N00494)
2 for which studies are on folios 17 and 21 (
D05513,
D05520), has an arch as sketched here. All these classical themes are linked by love or marriage. Turner probably took his idea of Nausicaa, the island-dwelling potential bride of Ulysses in Homer’s
Odyssey, from Alexander Pope’s translation in Robert Anderson’s
Works of the British Poets; for this source see note to folio 49 verso (
D05568). Nicholson reads the figures sketched here as Nausicaa and her friends engaged in premature preparations for her marriage, washing her wedding garments in a pool. Nicholson points out that Turner addressed the next episode, Nausicaa’s encounter with the shipwrecked Ulysses, in a drawing in the
Wey, Guildford sketchbook (Tate
D06183; Turner Bequest XCVIII 3) which is rather more developed, with the addition of wash, and shows ‘attention to its charming details’.
3
