For
Mercury and Herse (on the London art market in 2005)
1and related drawings in this sketchbook see folio 57 (
D05581). Finberg made no connection with the present drawing and Butlin and Joll, while citing it, are sceptical about a relationship with the picture, which has a different foreground.
Turner’s inscription (which Finberg and Wilton credit to folio 59,
D05585) lists other possible subjects: ‘Eneas and Evander | Pallas & Aenas, departing from Evander | Return of the Argo’. The first two are from Virgil’s
Aeneid, Book 7: the encounter of Aeneas, while on his journey up the Tiber to fulfil his destiny in founding Rome, with Evander who greets him and forms an alliance; and Aeneas departing for war with Evander’s son Pallas. The third alternative is from the
Argonautics of Apollonius Rhodius, and indicates the return of Jason with the captured Golden Fleece; for Turner’s source, and for a possible drawing of ‘Jason & Argonauts on Board bearing the Fleece’ see folio 49 verso (
D05568).
In some verses in the
Perspective sketchbook used several years later (Tate
D07393: Turner Bequest CVIII 25) Turner describes the launching of ‘my dear Argo’:
She goes she goes then let her go
Long as the Thames shall flow
O Goddess bless the ship Argo
This has led to speculation that he named his own boat, used for sailing on the Thames,
Argo.
2
David Blayney Brown
February 2010
