Joseph Mallord William Turner

Provenance:
...
Henry Vaughan by 1872

Engraved:
Etching and mezzotint by J.M.W. Turner and Charles Turner, ‘The 5^th Plague of Egypt the Picture late in the possession of W,, Beckford Esq^r.’, published Charles Turner, 10 June 1808

Turner’s Liber Studiorum design follows his oil painting, The Fifth Plague of Egypt, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1800, with a partial quotation of a verse from Exodus: ‘And Moses stretched forth his hands [sic: ‘rod’ in the King James Version] toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground.’1 It was his first major ‘history’ painting, and was bought by his wealthy patron William Beckford, though the lettering of the engraving acknowledged that it had already been disposed of by 1808 (at the Fonthill sale in August 1807); it is now at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.2

There has been debate over which plague Turner intended to show.3 His title referred to the fifth plague,4 affecting Egyptian animals, but the quotation was from the episode of the seventh,5 of hail and fire: ‘for upon every man and beast which shall be found in the field, and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die.’6 As a consequence ‘the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field.’7

Turner may not have had access to the painting while making the present design, as none of the various elements corresponds precisely. Most notably, the brilliantly-lit single pyramid at the centre of the painting has been replaced by three – two lit up to the left, and one in darkness to the right. The horses and figures in the foreground have also been slightly rearranged; and the whirling masses of smoky cloud in the painting are here pierced by dramatic diagonal beams of light and bolts of lightning. Turner may have referred back to a drawing in the Dolbadarn sketchbook (Tate D02114; Turner Bequest XLVI 79), which appears to be a study for the figures, trees and horse(s), and a figure in the Studies for Pictures sketchbook (Tate D04016; Turner Bequest LXIX 22) which may be a study for Moses. In broader terms the composition drew on the classical landscapes of Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) and Richard Wilson.8