Joseph Mallord William Turner

The subject is continued on folio 61 recto opposite (D01563; Turner Bequest XL 59). As Jerrold Ziff has proposed,1 followed tentatively by Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, this is perhaps a study for the oil painting The Army of the Medes destroyed in the Desart by a Whirlwind, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1801.2 A further meditation on the same subject is on folios 62 verso–63 recto (D01566–D01567; Turner Bequest XL 60a–61). It is not clear whether the studies of clambering men on other pages of the book (folios 6 verso–7 recto, 13 recto; D01472–D01473, D01484) are related to this apocalyptic idea, which seems to foreshadow in several respects the themes of Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army crossing the Alps, exhibited at the Academy in 1812 (Tate N00490).3