By Kind Permission of a Private Collection
By Kind Permission of a Private Collection
Drawn and etched by Turner. Engraved in mezzotint by Dunkarton. Dated 1812 and published in Part 9 of the Liber Studiorum ( Finberg 46). Category: Historical. (See Forrester, pp.107-8.)
In PreRaphaelitism (1851) Ruskin mentions this plate in a discussion of the range of Turner 's art ( Works, 12.370). In Modern Painters III (1856), he includes it in a list of 'the finest works in the book', asserting that it was drawn 'under the influence of Titian' ( Works, 5.399), and in Modern Painters IV (1856) he writes of the 'intense horror and pathos of the Rizpah' ( Works, 6.26). In his Notes on the Turner Gallery (1857) he again includes it in a list of the 'best of the series' ( Works, 13.96). The plate is referred to in Modern Painters V (1860) as an effective depiction of sorrow, showing Rizpah 'desolate by her last sons slain' ( Works, 7.386) and again 'more than dead, beside her children' ( Works, 7.434). In 1869, in a pamphlet to illustrate Ruskin's lecture The Flamboyant Architecture of the Valley of the Somme, this plate was given as an example of 'Northern Gloom in contemplation of death. In its noblest phase' ( Works, 19.274). An impression was included in the Oxford Rudimentary Series, said in the catalogue (1878) to express 'the temper of Turner's own mind - infinite sadness for the passing away of all that he had loved, and his own work only the guarding of its relics' ( Works, 21.224-25).
J.M.W. Turner 1775-1851
Rispah c.1807-8
Watercolour on white wove writing paper, 18.1x25.3cm
Engraving:
Engraved by R. Dunkarton, 1812
Mezzotint engraving, 18x26cm
Engraved for the Liber Studiorum, part 9
Provenance: Turner Bequest, 1856 (CXVII U)
Further Comments: The literary source for the 'Rispah' in the Liber Studiorum is the Old Testament, Second Book of Samuel, ch.21.
Collection: Tate Gallery, London