By Kind Permission of a Private Collection
By Kind Permission of a Private Collection
Turner 's The Fighting 'Temeraire' tugged to her last berth to be broken up, oil on canvas, exhibited Royal Academy 1839, Turner Bequest, National Gallery ( Wilton P377).
Among the most celebrated of Turner 's paintings - and one which the artist would not sell, wishing it to remain as part of his bequest to the nation - this was hailed by Ruskin as one of the finest of his latest works and 'the last picture in which Turner's execution is as firm and faultless as in middle life' ( Notes on the Turner Gallery at Marlborough House, 1857; Works, 13.168).
The Téméraire was the second ship in Nelson's line at the Battle of Trafalgar, and its retirement and breaking in 1838 evoked widespread national sympathy, echoed and admired at the time in Turner 's painting. But Ruskin further saw in the image an element of symbolic biography: 'his [Turner's] returning to die by the shore of the Thames: the cold mists gathering over his strength, and all men crying out against him, and dragging the old "fighting Téméraire" out of their way, with dim, fuliginous contumely' ( Works, 13.169).
J.M.W. Turner 1775-1851
The Fighting 'Téméraire' tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up 1838
Oil on canvas, 91x122cm
Exhibitions: RA 1839 (43); J. Hogarth's, 1844; Amsterdam, Berne, Paris, Brussels, Liege (36, repr.), Venice and Rome (42, repr) 1947-8; Cape Town 1952 (29)
Engraving:
Engraved by J.T. Willmore, 1845
Steel engraving, 27.9x37.8cm
Provenance: Turner Bequest 1856 (34, 'The Temeraire'); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1951, returned to the National Gallery, 1956
Further Comments: Willmore engraved the subject a second time for publication in the Turner Gallery, 1859.
Collection: National Gallery, London