J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Farnley Hall and Yorkshire c.1808-24 > Woodcock Shooting Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Study for 'Apullia in Search of Appullus' c.1812-13

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Study for 'Apullia in Search of Appullus'’ c.1812-13
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 41 Recto:
Study for ‘Apullia in Search of Appullus’ c.1812–13
D09116
Turner Bequest CXXIX 41
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 178 mm
Trace of inscription by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘41 [?]’ bottom right
Stamped in brown ‘CXXIX 41’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The image is inverted in relation to the numbered sequence of drawings in this sketchbook.
Finberg rightly identified this as a study for the painting Apullia in Search of Appullus (Tate N00495)1 exhibited at the British Institution in 1814, but was incorrect in also thinking it a copy of the painting by Claude Lorraine, Jacob with Laban and his Daughters (National Trust, Petworth House, Sussex) to which Turner’s picture is closely related. The present study has towers at the centre and right end of the bridge as does Turner’s finished composition, but there are none in the Claude. Butlin and Joll draw attention to other studies for the picture in the Chemistry and Apuleia sketchbook (Tate D09982–D09986; Turner Bequest 66 verso–68 verso) but the present sketch is closer than those to both Turner’s finished composition and to the Petworth Claude.

David Hill
October 2008

1
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.91–2 no.128, pl.134.

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Study for ‘Apullia in Search of Appullus’ c.1812–13 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2008, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-study-for-apullia-in-search-of-appullus-r1146838, accessed 26 September 2025.