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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Switzerland 1802 > Studies in the Louvre Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Mars and Venus, after Guercino 1802

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Mars and Venus, after Guercino’ 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 35 Recto:
Mars and Venus, after Guercino 1802
D04319
Turner Bequest LXXII 35
Pencil, watercolour and some scratching out, on white wove paper prepared with a reddish brown wash, 128 x 114 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘35’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXII–35’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Guercino’s (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino 1591–1666) picture – attributed to Domenichino by Turner in his commentary begun on folio 36 of this sketchbook (D04320) – had been taken from the collection of the ducal Este family in Modena in 1796. It was returned in 1815 (Galleria Estense, Modena). Turner also copied Guercino’s Virgin and Child, perhaps then attributed to Ercole Gennari – see folio 37 (D04322) – and his Raising of Lazarus under the impression it was by Domenichino; see folio 53 (D04342). For his copies of Domenichino’s Hercules and Cacus and Combat of Hercules and Achelous, see folios 76, 77 (D04372, D04374).
In respect of Turner’s misattribution of the present picture, Guillaume Faroult has confirmed to Ian Warrell that the Louvre’s official catalogue in 1802 left a slight doubt as to its authorship.1
1
Warrell in David Solkin ed., Turner and the Masters, exhibition catalogue, Tate Britain, London 2009, pp.44, 225 note 15.
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
October 2009

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Mars and Venus, after Guercino 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-mars-and-venus-after-guercino-r1129728, accessed 25 April 2024.