The Rape of Proserpine

1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artist, British, 1775 - 1851

About a dozen people, tiny in scale, flail their arms or huddle in small groups in a vast, mountainous landscape in this gold-toned, horizontal painting. A grassy expanse stretches across the bottom edge the canvas into the middle distance, where it meets steep hills separated by deep valleys. White water, falls or rivers, separate some of the mounds. Two tall branches of a sparse, V-shaped tree cut into the sky to our right. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and the landscape and people are painted loosely so details are difficult to make out. The people cluster in two groups in the landscape, which is painted with tones of eucalyptus and laurel green. To our left, a person runs from what appears to be a fire-lined opening in the ground. A basket, a set of pan pipes, perhaps a cloak, and maybe some tools are gathered near the tree to our right. A walled building complex high on a flat hilltop in the distance is warmed to peanut brown by the setting sun. A blanket of dark buttercup-yellow and rust-orange clouds mostly hides an icy blue sky.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Mrs. Watson B. Dickerman

  • Dimensions

    overall: 92.6 x 123.7 cm (36 7/16 x 48 11/16 in.)
    framed: 124.1 x 154.9 x 10.1 cm (48 7/8 x 61 x 4 in.)

  • Accession

    1951.18.1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly William Wethered [d. 1863], King's Lynn, Norfolk, and, by 1849, London.[1] John Chapman [1810-1877], Hill End, Cheshire, and Carlecotes, Yorkshire, by 1852;[2] by descent to his son, Edward Chapman [1839-1906]. (Arthur J. Sulley & Co.), London, in joint ownership with (Thos. Agnew & Co.), London; purchased 1912 from (Arthur J. Sulley & Co.), New York, by Watson B. Dickerman [1846-1923]; passed to his wife, Florence E. Dickerman, New York; gift to NGA, 1951.
[1] The evidence for Wethered's possible ownership of the picture is discussed in Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, 2d rev. ed., 2 vols., (New Haven and London, 1984), I: 232. [2] According to a note in the copy of the Royal Academy catalogue of 1839, in Agnew's library (Butlin and Joll, per note 1 above).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1839

  • Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1839, no. 360, with Ovid's Metam. (appended to the title).

1857

  • Art Treasures of the United Kingdom: Paintings by Modern Masters, Art Treasures Palace, Manchester, 1857, no. 191, as Pluto Carrying Away Prosperine.

1887

  • Royal Jubilee Exhibition, Fine Arts Galleries, Manchester, 1887, no. 609.

1892

  • Loan Collection of Pictures, Corporation of London Art Gallery, Guildhall, 1892, no. 112.

1896

  • Works by the Old Masters, and by Deceased Masters of the British School. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1896, no. 28.

1899

  • Pictures and Drawings by J.M.W. Turner, R.A., and a Selection of Pictures by Some of His Conemporaries, Corporation of London Art Gallery, Guildhall, 1899, no. 35.

1908

  • Paintings Lent by George John Chapman, Esq. and the Executors of the Late Edward Chapman, Esq., City of Manchester Art Gallery, 1908, no. 020.

1914

  • Paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. and J.M.W. Turner, R.A., M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York, 1914, no. 37.

Bibliography

1839

  • Fraser's Magazine 19 (19 June 1839): 744.

  • Art-Union 1 (15 May 1839): 69.

  • Athenaeum 602 (11 May 1839): 357.

  • Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 46 (September 1839): 313.

  • Spectator 12, no. 567 (11 May 1839): 447.

1846

  • Ruskin, John. Modern Painters. 5 vols. London, 1843-1856, 1 (3d ed., 1846): 129-130. The Works of John Ruskin. Edited by E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn. 39 vols. London and New York, 1903-1912: 3:242.

1857

  • Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of more than Forty Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Mss., &c.&c., visited in 1854 and 1856, ..., forming a supplemental volume to the "Treasures of Art in Great Britain." London, 1857: 419-420.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 133.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 120, repro.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 354, repro.

1980

  • Collected Correspondence of J.M.W. Turner. Edited by John Gage. Oxford, 1980: 297.

1981

  • Shanes, Eric. Review of The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner. by Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll 1972. In Turner Studies 1 (1981): 46.

1984

  • Butlin, Martin, and Evelyn Joll. The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner. 2 vols. New Haven and London, 1977 (2d rev. ed., 1984): 1: no. 380; 2: pl. 384.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 406, repro.

1992

  • Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 280-283, repro. 281.

2011

  • Pergam, Elizabeth A. The Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857: Entrepreneurs, Connoisseurs and the Public. Farnham and Burlington, 2011: 69, 313.

Wikidata ID

Q20186481

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