Joseph Mallord William Turner

Continuation of Chertsey Bridge; Three Studies of a Lily, for ‘The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire’

c.1816–19

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Richmond Hill; Hastings to Margate Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 155 × 95 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D10426
Turner Bequest CXL 9

Catalogue entry

A small stretch of landscape at top left is an extension of the view of Chertsey Bridge on folio 8 verso (D10425). The studies of a flowering lily are for the plant growing in a Greek black-figure vase in the left foreground of The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire (Tate N00499)1 exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1817. A sketch of motifs nearby in the picture is also on 8 verso; see catalogue notes for their significance as indicators of the former importance of the arts in ancient Carthage and their neglect as a factor in the empire’s decline.

David Blayney Brown
July 2011

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.110–1 no.135 (pl.137).

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