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 > Rhine, Strassburg and Oxford Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Historical Study: For 'The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides' or 'Apollo and Python' 1802-11

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Historical Study: For 'The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides' or 'Apollo and Python'’ 1802-11
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 45 Recto:
Historical Study: For ‘The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides’ or ‘Apollo and Python’ 1802–11
D04789
Turner Bequest LXXVII 45
Pencil on white wove paper, 154 x 240 mm
Inscribed probably by John Ruskin in red ink ‘45’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXVII – 45’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
See note to folio 43 verso of this sketchbook (D04787) for John Ruskin’s note labelling a parcel containing this drawing as studies of Apollo and Python. Discounting this, Finberg associated it with The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides exhibited at the British Institution in 1806 (Tate N00477).1 See folio 44 (D04788) for the picture and for another possibly related sketch. Kathleen Nicholson, however, regards the present sketch as closer to Apollo and Python exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1811 (Tate N00488),2 to which folio 43 verso relates, and ‘perhaps even its first draft’.3
1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.44–6 no.57 (pl.67).
2
Ibid., p.82 no.115 (pl.119).
3
Nicholson 1990, p.73 note 26.
Verso:
Inscribed by an unknown hand in black ink ‘192 (within circle) bottom right
Inscribed by an unknown hand in pencil ‘LXXVII’ right of centre

David Blayney Brown
March 2004

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Historical Study: For ‘The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides’ or ‘Apollo and Python’ 1802–11 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2004, 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-historical-study-for-the-goddess-of-discord-choosing-the-r1133493, accessed 19 April 2024.