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

Turner turned the sketchbook to landscape format to make this drawing. Domenichino’s (Domenico Zampieri, called Domenichino 1581–1641) picture dates from 1622–3. The subject is from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The fire-breathing monster Cacus, who has stolen and hidden Hercules’s cattle, is dragged from his lair and killed by the hero. Turner took considerable interest in Domenichino while in the Louvre, copying both this work and its companion, Hercules and Achelous. His notes on the picture are on folio 76 of the sketchbook (D04372). He was also under the impression that Guercino’s Mars and Venus and Raising of Lazarus, which he drew or made notes on, were by Domenichino; see folio 35 (D04319) and folios 53, 54 verso (D04342, D04344). Surprisingly, however, he did not copy or remark on the painter’s most famous work in the Louvre, The Last Communion of St Jerome.