By Kind Permission of a Private Collection
By Kind Permission of a Private Collection
Turner 's War. The exile and the rock limpet, oil on canvas, exhibited Royal Academy 1842, Turner Bequest, Tate Gallery ( Wilton P400).
Ruskin classified this painting in Turner 's 'third period', 1835-1845, when the artist's mind became more serious, 'nearly all the subjects on which it dwelt having now some pathetic meaning. Formerly he painted the Victory in her triumph, but now the Old Téméraire in her decay; formerly Napoleon at Marengo, now Napoleon at St. Helena' ( Works, 13.147).
He continued, in the Notes on the Turner Gallery at Marlborough House (1857): 'The conceit of Napoleon's seeing a resemblance in the limpet's shell to a tent was thought trivial by most people at the time; it may be so (though not to my mind); the second thought, that even this wave-washed disk had power and liberty, denied to him, will hardly, I think, be mocked at' ( Works, 13.161).
In common with many of his contemporaries, Ruskin had some respect for Napoleon, and paid 1000 guineas in 1869 for Meissonier's small oil painting of Napoleon in 1814 (now in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore). This hung in his bedroom at Brantwood, until he sold it in 1882.
J.M.W. Turner 1775-1851
War: the Exile and the Rock-Limpet 1842
Oil on canvas, 79.5x79.5cm
Exhibitions: RA 1842 (353); Paris 1983-4 (71, repr. in colour)
Provenance: Turner Bequest 1856; transferred to the Tate Gallery, 1905
Collection: Tate Gallery, London