25 Works, November 12th. is William Turner's day, his art, illustrated with footnotes #233

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851)

The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, c. 1822–1824

Oil on canvas

H 261.5 x W 368.5 cm

National Maritime Museum

This is Turner’s only work by ‘royal command’ and the largest and most publicly controversial painting of his career. George IV gave him the commission late in 1822 on the advice of Sir Thomas Lawrence, President of the Royal Academy. It was to form a naval pair with Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg’s 1795 view of The Battle of the Glorious First of June 1794, in a patriotic post-war redecoration of the State Rooms at St James’s Palace.

In 'The Harbours of England' Ruskin grasped this elemental component when he likened the uncontrollability of the ship’s sails, as Turner shows them, to ‘as many thunderclouds’, most of 'Victory’'s falling with her foremast and at the same time as Nelson. Also symbolically, the falling mast bears his white vice-admiral’s flag, while the code flags spelling ‘d-u-t-y’ – both the last word of his famous Trafalgar signal and the last coherent thought he spoke (‘Thank God I have done my duty’) – are coming down from the mainmast. More on this painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851)

Detai; The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, c. 1822–1824

Oil on canvas

H 261.5 x W 368.5 cm

National Maritime Museum

This work depicts a scene from the Battle of Trafalgar. The British had twenty-seven ships to the thirty-three of the Franco-Spanish fleet. Despite this, the British came out as decisively victorious and captured or destroyed nineteen of the Franco-Spanish ships. At the height of the battle Nelson was shot from a nearby French ship and mortally wounded. Despite this upsetting death, the victory at Trafalgar represented a crucial naval victory for the British. Their dominance effectively established them as the great naval power and ended Napoleon’s plans to conquer England. More on the Battle of Trafalgar.

Joseph Mallord William Turner RA (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colourisations, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings. He left behind more than 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, and 30,000 works on paper. He was championed by the leading English art critic John Ruskin from 1840, and is today regarded as having elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting.

Turner was born in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, to a modest lower-middle-class family. He lived in London all his life, retaining his Cockney accent and assiduously avoiding the trappings of success and fame. 

attributed to Joseph Mallord William Turner

Diana and Callisto (after Wilson), c.1796

Oil paint on canvas

565 × 914 mm

Tate

Turner’s earliest history paintings followed the example of the Welsh artist Richard Wilson. This picture is loosely based on an engraving of one of Wilson’s views of Lake Nemi in the collection of Turner’s patron, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, at Stourhead in Wiltshire.

Located south-east of Rome, Lake Nemi occupies a volcanic crater and was known as the mirror of Diana. This standard association led Wilson (and subsequently Turner) to add an incident from the myth of Diana to the foreground. More on this painting

In Greek mythology, Callisto was a nymph, and one of the followers of Artemis (Diana for the Romans) who attracted Zeus. According to some writers, Zeus transformed himself into the figure of Artemis to lure Callisto and seduce her. She became pregnant and when this was eventually discovered, she was expelled from Artemis's group, after which a furious Hera, the wife of Zeus, transformed her into a bear. Later, just as she was about to be killed by her son when he was hunting, she was set among the stars as Ursa Major ("the Great Bear"). She was the bear-mother of the Arcadians, through her son Arcas by Zeus. More on Callisto

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Shipping by a Breakwater, c.1798

Oil paint on mahogany

302 × 194 mm

Tate

Turner first made drawings of sea-going ships while visiting relatives at Margate at the age of about ten. Years later, when shown a print after the seventeenth-century Dutch marine artist Willem van de Velde, he is said to have declared, 'That made me a painter'. More on this painting

A child prodigy, Turner studied at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1789, enrolling when he was 14, and exhibited his first work there at 15. During this period, he also served as an architectural draftsman. 

By the end of 1789, he had also begun to study under the topographical draughtsman Thomas Malton, who specialised in London views. Turner learned from him the basic tricks of the trade, copying and colouring outline prints of British castles and abbeys. He would later call Malton "My real master". Topography was a thriving industry by which a young artist could pay for his studies.

He began to travel to Europe from 1802, typically returning with voluminous sketchbooks.

J. M. W. Turner  (1775–1851)

Fishermen at Sea, c. 1796

Depicting The Needles

Height: 914 mm (35.98 in); Width: 1,222 mm (48.11 in)

Tate Britain

This is a moonlit scene in the tradition of Horace Vernet, Philip de Loutherbourg and Joseph Wright of Derby. These painters were largely responsible for fuelling the 18th-century vogue for nocturnal subjects. The sense of the overwhelming power of nature is a key theme of the Sublime. The potency of the moonlight contrasts with the delicate vulnerability of the flickering lantern, emphasising nature’s power over mankind and the fishermen’s fate in particular. The jagged silhouettes on the left are the treacherous rocks called ‘the Needles’ off the Isle of Wight. More on this painting

The Needles is a row of three stacks of chalk that rise about 30m out of the sea off the western extremity of the Isle of Wight in the English Channel. The Needles were a site of a long-standing artillery battery, from the 1860s to 1954, which was eventually decommissioned. More on The Needles

In 1796, Turner exhibited Fishermen at Sea (See above), his first oil painting for the academy, of a nocturnal moonlit scene of the Needles off the Isle of Wight, an image of boats in peril. Wilton said that the image was "a summary of all that had been said about the sea by the artists of the 18th century".

J. M. W. Turner

The Fifth Plague of Egypt, c. 1800

Oil on canvas

Height: 48 in (121.9 cm); Width: 72 in (182.8 cm)

Indianapolis Museum of Art

This dark, tempestuous painting marks the rise of Turner as a full-fledged Romantic painter. Relying on vast scale, dynamic movement, and dramatic subject, his composition appeals primarily to the emotions to communicate its message. Turner’s motive for painting this canvas, which was his first major work exhibited at the Royal Academy, may have been a desire to impress British critics and viewers with his ability to handle serious themes. However, it does appear that the young painter mistitled his picture, as this canvas actually depicts the seventh plague of Egypt, when Moses stretched his arms toward heaven and thunder, hail, and fire rained on the pharaoh and his people. More on this painting

The Indianapolis Museum of Art, home to the largest Turner collection outside the UK.

Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Tenth Plague of Egypt, c. exhibited 1802

Oil paint on canvas

1435 × 2362 mm

Tate

This painting illustrates a passage from the Bible. It describes one of the plagues inflicted on the Egyptians by God as punishment for enslaving the Jewish people: the killing of all the first-born sons of the Egyptians. The dark clouds in the sky emphasise the power of forces beyond human’s control. Turner exhibited the picture just a couple of months after becoming a full member of the Royal Academy. Depictions of stories from the Bible and ancient Greek and Roman myth was seen by the Academy as the most important form of art. More on this painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Detail; The Tenth Plague of Egypt, c. exhibited 1802

Oil paint on canvas

1435 × 2362 mm

Tate

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Light and Colour (Goethe’s Theory) - the Morning after the Deluge - Moses Writing the Book of Genesis, c. exhibited 1843

Oil paint on canvas

787 × 787 mm

Tate

Made during the latter years of Turner's career, this painting depicts the aftermath of the Great flood story told in the Book of Genesis.[2] The role of man is portrayed as passive through his inability to control nature, which is beautiful to the eye yet has the power to destroy and recreate life. This piece also illustrates Turner's belief in God's omnipotence as it is He who creates the flood, allows Noah to survive, and inspired Moses to write the Book of Genesis. Genesis, in this case leads back to the creation of man, light, and the water which light is being reflected on. More on this painting

He earned a steady income from commissions and sales, which due to his troubled, contrary nature, were often begrudgingly accepted. He opened his own gallery in 1804 and became professor of perspective at the academy in 1807, where he lectured until 1828. 

Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Shipwreck, c. exhibited 1805

Oil paint on canvas

1705 × 2416 mm

Tate

Turner had a lifelong passion for the sea. Shipwrecks and other disasters were a popular theme when Turner painted this. They demonstrated the powerful forces of the elements and the fears of those who travelled far from home. We don’t know whether this painting was inspired by an actual shipwreck. Turner demonstrates the trauma and horror of a shipwreck with dramatic realism. These dark colours are common in Turner’s early paintings. They provide a contrast to the white crests of the waves. More on this painting

J. M. W. Turner  (1775–1851)

Dido Building Carthage aka The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire, c. 1815

Oil on canvas

155.5 x 230 CM

National Gallery, London

The painting is one of Turner's most important works, greatly influenced by the luminous classical landscapes of Claude Lorrain. Turner described it as his chef d'oeuvre. First exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1815, Turner kept the painting until he left it to the nation in the Turner Bequest. It has been held by the National Gallery in London since 1856.

J. M. W. Turner  (1775–1851)

Detail; Dido Building Carthage aka The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire, c. 1815

Oil on canvas

155.5 x 230 CM

National Gallery, London

The subject is a classical landscape taken from Virgil's Aeneid. The figure in blue and white on the left is Dido, directing the builders of the new city of Carthage. The figure in front of her, wearing armour and facing away from the viewer, may be her Trojan lover Aeneas. Some children are playing with a flimsy toy boat in the water, symbolising the growing but fragile naval power of Carthage, while the tomb of her dead husband Sychaeus, on the right side of the painting, on the other bank of the estuary, foreshadows the eventual doom of Carthage. More on this painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, c. exhibited 1812

Oil paint on canvas

1460 × 2375 mm

Tate

The painting depicts the struggle of Hannibal's soldiers to cross the Maritime Alps in 218 BC, opposed by the forces of nature and local tribes. A curving black storm cloud dominates the sky, poised to descend on the soldiers in the valley below, with an orange-yellow Sun attempting to break through the clouds. A white avalanche cascades down the mountain to the right. Hannibal himself is not clearly depicted, but may be riding the elephant just visible in the distance. The large animal is dwarfed by the storm and the landscape, with the sunlit plains of Italy opening up beyond. In the foreground, Salassian tribesmen are fighting Hannibal's rearguard, confrontations that are described in the histories of Polybius and Livy. The painting measures 146 × 237.5 centimetres (57.5 × 93.5 in). It contains the first appearance in Turner's work of a swirling oval vortex of wind, rain and cloud, a dynamic composition of contrasting light and dark that will recur in later works, such as his 1842 painting Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth.. More on this painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1775 - 1851

Ulysses deriding Polyphemus - Homer's Odyssey, c. 1829

Oil on canvas

132.5 x 203 cm

National Gallery

The subject of this painting is taken from Book IX of Homer’s Odyssey. It shows Ulysses sailing from the island where Polyphemus, a one-eyed giant, had held him and his men captive. Wearing a helmet and a scarlet cloak, Ulysses raises his arms in victory as he stands on the deck of his ship, below a red banner, looking back at the island. He lifts the flaming torch with which he blinded Polyphemus, whose huge shadowy body lies sprawled across the clifftop that towers above. Luminous sea nymphs and flying fish gather at the ship’s prow as a blazing sun rises through the morning mists.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1775 - 1851

Detail; Ulysses deriding Polyphemus - Homer's Odyssey, c. 1829

Oil on canvas

132.5 x 203 cm

National Gallery

The painting signals the increasing role of colour and light in Turner’s historical landscapes. It also marks the increasingly expressive direction his painting was to follow and anticipates the visionary qualities of his late work. Writing in 1856, the English art critic John Ruskin declared it to be ‘the central picture of Turner’s career'. More on this painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner

View of Orvieto, Painted in Rome, 1828, reworked 1830

Oil paint on canvas

914 × 1232 mm

Tate

Orvieto is a city and comune in the Province of Terni, southwestern Umbria, Italy situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff. The city rises dramatically above the almost-vertical faces of tuff cliffs that are completed by defensive walls built of the same stone, called tufa. More on Orvieto

Turner painted this picture in 1828, during his stay in Rome. Unlike many of his Italian landscapes, it shows a real place. Turner made several sketches of Orvieto on his journey to Rome. The final painting combines these sketches with compositions Turner admired in the work of the 17th-century classical landscape painter, Claude Lorrain.

This is one of a small group of paintings Turner showed in an exhibition he held at his lodgings in Rome in 1828. He may have reworked it before showing it in London two years later. More on this painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851)

Lifeboat and Manby Apparatus Going off to a Stranded Vessel Making the Signal (Blue Lights) of Distress, c.1831

Oil on canvas

H 91.4 x W 122 cm

Victoria and Albert Museum

The Manby apparatus was a lifesaving device consisting of a rope fired from a mortar. Captain George Manby invented it after a shipwreck in 1807 at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in the year that this work was exhibited. More on this painting

J. M. W. Turner  (1775–1851)

The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, c. 1834 or 1835

Oil on canvas

Height: 36.2 in (92 cm); Width: 48.5 in (123.1 cm)

Philadelphia Museum of Art

"Shortly before 7 o'clock last night the inhabitants of Westminster, and of the districts on the opposite bank of the river, were thrown into the utmost confusion and alarm by the sudden breaking out of one of the most terrific conflagrations that has been witnessed for many years past....The Houses of the Lords and Commons and the adjacent buildings were on fire."

So wrote the London Times on October 17, 1834. Turner witnessed the event, along with tens of thousands of spectators, and recorded what he saw in quick sketches that became the basis for this painting. Flames consume Saint Stephen's Hall, the House of Commons, and eerily illuminate the towers of Westminster Abbey, which would be spared. On the right the exaggerated scale and plunging perspective of Westminster Bridge intensify the drama of the scene, which Turner observed from the south bank of the Thames River. More on this painting

J. M. W. Turner  (1775–1851)

The Burning of the Houses of Parliament, 16 October 1834, c. 1834

Oil on canvas

Height: 92 cm (36.2 in); Width: 123 cm (48.4 in)

Cleveland Museum of Art

Turner painted two versions of this event. This painting views the fire downriver, from the southeast bank of the Thames, while the second version at the Philadelphia Museum of Art views the fire from directly across Westminster Bridge.

Fire consumed London’s famous Houses of Parliament on the night of October 16, 1834, and people gathered along the banks of the river Thames to gaze in awe at the horrifying spectacle. Initially, a low tide made it difficult to pump water to land and hampered steamers towing firefighting equipment along the river. The blaze burned uncontrollably for hours.

J. M. W. Turner records the struggle as the boats in the lower-right corner head toward the flames. Although Turner based the painting on an actual event, he magnified the height of the flames, using the disaster as the starting point to express man’s helplessness when confronted with the destructive powers of nature. Brilliant swathes of color and variable atmospheric effects border on abstraction. More on this painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, London 1775–1851 London)

The Fort of L'Esseillon, Val de la Maurienne, France, c. 1835–36

Watercolor

7 3/4 x 11 in. (19.7 x 28 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

We look southwest along the Arc River gorge toward the Fort of L’Esseillon, a stepped construction on a slope in the middle distance, with snowcapped peaks beyond. The complex was built between 1819 and 1836 to guard the Mont-Cenis Pass into Italy after France ceded Savoy to Piedmont. Turner likely borrowed details of the composition from an engraved illustration in an 1827 book written by his friend William Brockedon. The drawing’s detailed handling suggests a date in the 1830s, though it was likely finished before the artist set out for France in 1836—a tour during which he typically worked in a looser manner. More on this painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, London 1775–1851 London)

Detail; The Fort of L'Esseillon, Val de la Maurienne, France, c. 1835–36

Watercolor

7 3/4 x 11 in. (19.7 x 28 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

J. M. W. Turner  (1775–1851)

The Beacon Light, c. circa 1840

Medium painting

DHeight: 61.5 cm (24.2 in); Width: 96 cm (37.7 in)

National Museum Cardiff

Turner captures the effect of light on a raging sea and the spray from the waves crashing against the cliff.   His intention here was to explore the nature of the sea under a changing sky, rather than to depict a specific place.  However, the discovery of a painted out lighthouse on the cliff edge has prompted new research into a possible location.  Traditionally said to show The Needles, Isle of Wight, it is now thought to depict the coastline from St Margaret’s-at-Cliffe, north of Dover looking towards the South Foreland Lighthouse, where there was both a beacon and a lighthouse.  More on this painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner (English, 1775–1851)

Slave Ship, c. 1840

Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On

Oil on canvas

90.8 x 122.6 cm (35 3/4 x 48 1/4 in.)

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Turner based the painting on an 18th-century poem that described a slave ship caught in a typhoon and on the true story of the Zong, a British ship whose captain, in 1781, had thrown overboard sick and dying enslaved people so that he could collect insurance money only available for those "lost at sea." Turner captures the horror of the event and the terrifying grandeur of nature through hot, churning color and light that merge sea and sky. The critic John Ruskin, the first owner of "Slave Ship," wrote, "If I were reduced to rest Turner's immortality upon any single work, I should choose this." More on this painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner

War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet, c. exhibited 1842

Oil paint on canvas

794 × 794 mm

Tate

This scene shows French military leader Napoleon in exile on the island of St Helena. He had been sent there after being defeated by a British-led army in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon died in St Helena in 1821. This work was painted in the year his ashes were returned to France. The image does not appear to celebrate or condemn Napoleon, but instead suggests the pointlessness of war. The isolated uniformed body appears out of place in its surroundings. The red background invokes the trauma of battle. In verses attached to the canvas, Turner refers to the sunset as a ‘sea of blood’. More on this painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1775 - 1851

Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway, c. 1844

Oil on canvas

91 x 121.8 cm

National Gallery, London

A steam engine comes towards us as it crosses the Maidenhead Railway Bridge in the rain. Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the bridge was completed in 1838. We are looking east towards London as the train heads to the west. The exaggeratedly abrupt foreshortening of the viaduct, which our eye follows to the horizon, suggests the speed with which the train bursts into view through the rain. Turner lightly brushed in a hare roughly midway along the rail track to represent the speed of the natural world in contrast to the mechanised speed of the engine. The animal is now invisible as the paint has become transparent with age, but it can be seen in an 1859 engraving of the painting. More on this painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, London 1775–1851 London)

Whalers, ca. 1845

Oil on canvas

36 1/8 x 48 1/4 in. (91.8 x 122.6 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The painting depicts a wounded sperm whale thrashing in a sea of foam and blood. In the background is a ghostly three-masted whaling vessel.

Turner was seventy years old when Whalers debuted to mixed reviews at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1845. Its subject proved elusive, as the English novelist William Thackeray observed: "That is not a smear of purple you see yonder, but a beautiful whale, whose tail has just slapped a half-dozen whale-boats into perdition; and as for what you fancied to be a few zig-zag lines spattered on the canvas at hap-hazard, look! they turn out to be a ship with all her sails." Apparently Turner undertook the painting—which was returned to him—for the collector Elhanan Bicknell, who had made his fortune in the whale-oil business. More on this painting

Intensely private, eccentric and reclusive, Turner was a controversial figure throughout his career. He did not marry, but fathered two daughters, Eveline (1801–1874) and Georgiana (1811–1843), by his housekeeper Sarah Danby. He became more pessimistic and morose as he got older, especially after the death of his father, after which his outlook deteriorated, his gallery fell into disrepair and neglect, and his art intensified. In 1841, Turner rowed a boat into the Thames so he could not be counted as present at any property in that year's census. He lived in squalor and poor health from 1845, and died in London in 1851 aged 76. Turner is buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral, London. More on Joseph Mallord William Turner

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31 Works, October 30th. is Angelica Kauffman's day, her art, illustrated with footnotes #228

Angelica Kauffmann (1741–1807) (after)

A Lady with a Dagger

Oil on canvas

H 34 x W 28.5 cm

Wigan Arts and Heritage Service

Maria Anna Angelika Kauffmann RA (30 October 1741 – 5 November 1807), usually known in English as Angelica Kauffman, was a Swiss Neoclassical painter who had a successful career in London and Rome. Remembered primarily as a history painter, Kauffmann was a skilled portraitist, landscape and decoration painter. She was, along with Mary Moser, one of two female painters among the founding members of the Royal Academy in London in 1768.

Angelica Kauffman

The Family of the Earl Gower, c. 1772

Oil on canvas

59 1/4 x 82 in

National Museum of Women in the Arts, 

Granville Leveson-Gower (1721–1803), known as Viscount Trentham, the Earl Gower, and the first Marquess of Stafford, was a British politician. Kauffman depicts him as the patriarch of his large family, which has gathered in a park-like setting.  The lyrical costumes, lyre, scroll, floral garlands, and marble bust, which bears a slight resemblance to the earl, all reference classical antiquity.

The earl’s son and heir, 14-year-old George Leveson-Gower, eventually the first Duke of Sutherland, carries a book to signal his erudition. The three youngest daughters form their own vignette, seemingly focused on the rites of spring and perhaps fertility and birth (Lady Susannah was pregnant in 1772), symbolized by the lamb. More on this painting

In 1757 she accompanied her father to Schwarzenberg in Vorarlberg/Austria where her father was working for the local bishop. Her father, Joseph Johann Kauffmann, was a skilled Austrian muralist and painter. He trained Angelica and she worked as his assistant, moving through Switzerland, Austria, and Italy. Angelica, a child prodigy, rapidly acquired several languages. She also showed talent as a musician and was forced to choose between opera and art. She quickly chose art. By her twelfth year she had already become known as a painter, with bishops and nobles being her sitters.

Angelica Kauffman RA (Chur 1741 – Rome 1807)

Vortigern, King of Britain, enamoured with Rowena at the Banquet of Hengist, the Saxon General, c. 1769 - 1770

Oil on canvas

1537 x 2146 mm (60 1/2 x 84 1/2 in)

National Trust, Saltram, Devon

Rowena was the daughter of the mythological Anglo-Saxon chief Hengist and wife of Vortigern, "King of the Britons". Presented as a beautiful femme fatale, she won her people the Kingdom of Kent through her treacherous seduction of Vortigern. More on this painting

In 1754, her mother died and her father decided to move to Milan. She became a member of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze in 1762. Kauffman and her family moved to Florence in June 1762. Moving to Rome in January 1763, Kauffman was introduced to the British community. While learning more English and continuing her portraiture, a few months later the family moved again to Naples. There Kauffman studied works by the Old Masters, and had her first painting sent to a public exhibition in London. 

She spoke Italian as well as German, and expressed herself with facility in French and English – one result of the last-named accomplishment being that she became a popular portraitist for British visitors to Rome. 

 Kauffmann, Angelica

Valentine, Proteus, Sylvia and Giulia in the Forest, c. 1788

Scene from "Two Gentlemen of Verona" Act V, Scene IV)

Oil on canvas

61 3/4 in. x 87 in. (156.8 cm x 221 cm)

Davis Museum at Wellesley College

Valentine sits alone in the forest. He hears shouts in the distance and hides. Proteus, Silvia, and Julia (still disguised as Sebastian) enter. Proteus pleads with Silvia to give him one kind glance as payment for rescuing her from the outlaws who would have "forced your honour and your love. Valentine overhears their discourse but decides to wait to reveal himself. Silvia tells Proteus that she would have preferred being eaten by a lion to being saved by him. She emphasizes her love for Valentine and her hatred for Proteus' willingness to betray his friend.

Proteus grows enraged at Silvia and moves to rape her. When Silvia cries out, Valentine angrily leaps out of the bushes and curses Proteus for his betrayal. Proteus begs for Valentine's forgiveness. Valentine immediately pardons Proteus and offers Silvia to him, at which point Sebastian faints. When Sebastian regains consciousness, he explains that he fainted because he forgot to give Proteus' ring to Silvia. Sebastian then produces two rings: that which Julia had given to Proteus, which he later intended for Silvia, and that which Proteus had given to Julia. When Proteus queries Sebastian on how he came to possess Julia's ring, Julia reveals her identity. Proteus immediately decides that Julia is more beautiful after all and decides to marry her instead of Silvia. More on Two Gentlemen of Verona

While in Venice, Kauffman was persuaded by Lady Wentworth, the wife of the British ambassador, to accompany her to London. One of the first pieces she completed in London was a portrait of David Garrick, exhibited in the year of her arrival at "Mr Moreing's great room in Maiden Lane." The rank of Lady Wentworth opened society to her, and she was everywhere well received, the royal family especially showing her great favour. Her firmest friend, however, was Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

Johann Zoffany  (1733–1810)

The Portraits of the Academicians of the Royal Academy, 1771-72

Oil on canvas

Royal Collection, London

This painting depicts all but three of the foremost Academicians, as well as the Cantonese sculptor Tan-Che-Qua (who happened to be in London at that time) and the Academy’s first Professor of Anatomy, William Hunter. 

The two portraits hanging on the wall are of Angelica Kauffmann and Mary Moser, the only female founding Academicians. Although there is no evidence that women were expressly forbidden from attending life-drawing classes, their physical absence from this painting suggest that it would have been deemed improper. More on this painting

Henry Singleton (1766–1839)

The Royal Academicians in General Assembly, c. 1795

Oil on canvas

H 198.1 x W 259 cm

Royal Academy of Arts

In this later painting the Royal Academicians are meeting in a ‘General Assembly’ to judge which works by students should be awarded medals. 

Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser are seen as relegated to the background. Singleton produced a rare naturalistic portrayal of Kauffman and Moser, assured and at ease among their male contemporaries and set by the painter at the apex of the arrangement of figures.’ As women, Kauffman and Moser did not in fact attend meetings of the General Assembly, so would not have been present. More on this painting

The ceiling includes Angelica Kauffman's paintings Design (See below) and Composition (See below).

Angelica Kauffman RA (1741 - 1807)

Design, c. 1778-80

Oil on canvas

Royal Academy of Arts

A female artist wearing working clothes intently studies a classical cast. She copies a cast of the Belvedere Torso, one of the best known classical sculptures, which is found in the Museo Pio-Clementino of the Vatican Museum, Rome. A cast of this figure is in the Royal Academy collection. During Kauffman's period, artists started their training by drawing casts and Kauffman would have trained in this way. Unlike her male colleagues however, Kauffman was unable to progress to the next stage of drawing from life models, as women were forbidden. Linberg writes that, although male artists frequently represented female bodies, it was rare for a woman to draw a male body – even an antique torso. More on this painting

Angelica Kauffman RA (1741 - 1807)

Composition, c. 1778-80

Oil on canvas

Royal Academy of Arts

This allegorical figure represents Composition, symbolising one of the four elements of art. She rests her head on her hand as if deep in thought. She leans on the base of a column which supports a chess board as a symbol of an intellectual and strategic activity. The compass in her hand refers to the precision required in the first stages of making art. She sits on the boundary between nature and architecture, as Composition draws from both fields. On the left are sheets of paper and a pen alluding to the preparatory drawings an artist does in creating a composition. More on this painting

Angelica Kauffman RA (1741 - 1807)

Invention, c. 1778-80

Oil on canvas

Royal Academy of Arts

A figure sits in a natural landscape with a celestial globe at her side. She is an allegorical figure, to represent Invention, or Genius as one of the four elements of art. The wings on her head and her raised arm suggest the elevation of intellect, which is required for invention. A rocky landscape with mountains in the background represents nature, which was considered the first invention. More on this painting

Angelica Kauffman RA (1741 - 1807)

Colour, c. 1778-80

Oil on canvas

Royal Academy of Arts

An artist in a natural landscape reaches to a rainbow above her to collect colour with her paintbrush. In her other hand she holds a palette with a single daub of white paint. She represents Painting or Colour, as one of the elements of art. A chameleon at her feet represents the diverse colours found in nature. Her hair and dress are loose leaving the figure partially unclothed. She is seated on the edge of a wood with a rocky landscape and mountains behind her. More on this painting

Kauffman’s four above paintings collectively represent the ‘Elements of Art’: Invention, Composition, Design and Colour. They represent Joshua Reynold’s theories in his Discourses on Art, given in lectures at the Royal Academy and later published in 1788.

In Design and Colour the figures are physically engaged in the act of creation whereas in Composition and Invention the figures are engaged in reflection. In Invention the figure looks to the sky for inspiration and in Composition she is deep in thought with her head in her hands. When displayed in the ceiling, the paintings are paired, with one practical and one theoretical at each side of the room. More on the elements of art

It was probably owing to Reynolds's good offices that she was among the signatories to the petition to the King for the establishment of the Royal Academy. In its first catalogue of 1769 she appears with "R.A." after her name (an honour she shared with one other woman, Mary Moser); and she contributed the Interview of Hector and Andromache (See below), and three other classical compositions. 

Angelica Kauffman RA (Chur 1741 – Rome 1807)

Hector taking leave of Andromache

Oil on canvas

1575 x 2010 x 75 mm

National Trust, Saltram, Devon

Hector, son of the King of Troy, prepares to go to battle. He wears his plumed helmet and holds a spear. He stands hand-in-hand with Andromache, his devoted wife, in front the gates of Troy. A nurse is holding their son Astyanax. The child prefers to look into her eyes rather than towards his father, who is attired for war.

Angelica Kauffman sent this Homeric painting to the inaugural exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1769. Hector Taking Leave of Andromache depicts a famous episode from the Homer’s great epic The Iliad. Here, Kauffman explores her trademark interests in masculine heroism and feminine fortitude, and in the conflicts between public duty and private life. She depicts the moment in Homer’s tale when the doomed Trojan hero, Hector, heading for battle, bids a reluctant, lingering but ultimately steadfast farewell to his wife Andromache and their child, Astyanax. Such paintings fused the weighty storylines of heroic sacrifice with more intimate and domestic narratives of farewell. More on this painting

Angelica Kauffmann (1741–1807)

Diomed and Cressida (from William Shakespeare's 'Troilus and Cressida', Act V, Scene ii), c. 1789

Oil on canvas

H 158 x W 222 cm

National Trust, Petworth House

The scene is taken from Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, Act V, scene II, outside the tent of Calchas, where the meeting of Diomedes and Cressida is witnessed by Troilus, Ulysses and Thersites.  More on Diomed and Cressida

Angelica Kauffman RA (Chur 1741 – Rome 1807)

Venus directing Aeneas and Achates to Carthage

Oil on canvas

1270 x 1016 mm (50 x 40 in)

National Trust, Saltram, Devon

Aeneas’s mother, the goddess Venus, disguised as a huntress, with a bow and quiver on her back, has appeared to direct Aeneas, and his faithful companion, Achates to the city of Carthage and Queen Dido. The two Trojan warriors have survived a storm, after the Sack of Troy and have arrived on the coast of Africa. The scene is from an episode in the first book of Virgil’s epic poem the Aeneid. More on this painting

 

Manner of Angelica Kauffmann

Mercury Leading Psyche Through A Wood

Oil on panel

61 x 94 cm

Private collection

The mythological story of Psyche, who was granted immortality after many trials and is taken by Mercury, the messenger of the gods, to Olympus in order that she may marry her beloved, Cupid, 

 Angelica Kauffmann

Ulysses on the Island of Circe, c. 1793

Oil on canvas

115 × 155 cm

Private collection

Angelica Kauffman RA (Chur 1741 – Rome 1807)

Penelope sacrificing to Minerva for the Safe Return of her Son, Telemachus

Oil on canvas

1499 x 1264 mm (59 x 49 3/4 in)

National Trust, Stourhead, Wiltshire 

Penelope, accompanied by her attendants, is invoking the aid of Minerva (or Athene), represented by a statue standing on a round plinth. Telemachus, accompanied by Minerva, disguised as his old guardian Mentor, had set out to find his father, Ulysses, after he did not return home from the Trojan wars but he also got waylaid and his mother is praying for his return.

The scene is told in Homer’s Odyssey but the artist may have been using François Fénélon’s Les Aventures de Télémaque, published in 1699 as a source when she painted the picture in 1774. More on this painting

A major source for Kauffman and other eighteenth-century painters on the moral and political education of Odysseus's son was The Adventures of Telemachus by François Fénelon (1651–1715), first published in 1699. Another popular reference was the translation of the ancient Greek epic by Alexander Pope (1688–1744), which initially appeared in 1725–26. More on this painting

Angelica Kauffman, Swiss, 1741 - 1807

TELEMACHUS IN SPARTA, c. 1773

Telemachus at the Court of Sparta Discovered by His Grief on the Mention of His Father's Suffering

Oil on paper laid down on canvas

12 1/8 × 16 1/8 in. (30.8 × 41 cm)

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College

Telemachus searching for his father, the young man is portrayed at the court of King Menelaus of Sparta. Menelaus has just informed Odysseus's son that his father is alive but held captive on Calypso's island. The picture relates to a large history painting of the same subject that Kauffman exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1773. More on this painting

Angelica Kauffmann  (1741–1807)

Telemachus and the Nymphs of Calypso, c. 1782

Oil on canvas

Height: 82.6 cm (32.5 in); Width: 112.4 cm (44.2 in)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Kauffmann’s subjects are taken from François Fénelon’s romance The Adventures of Telemachus, first published in 1699. In this painting, Telemachus and his companion, Mentor, who have been washed ashore, are welcomed by Calypso and her nymphs.

This painting and its pendant were executed in Rome for Monsignor Onorato Caetani, who in the same year had his portrait painted by Kauffmann. His later portraits by Mengs in 1779 and Batoni in 1782 attest to the tight-knit, international character of eighteenth-century Roman intellectual circles. More on this painting

Angelica Kauffmann (Swiss, Chur 1741–1807 Rome)

The Sorrow of Telemachusc. 1783

Oil on canvas

32 3/4 x 45 in. (83.2 x 114.3 cm)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Kauffmann’s subjects are taken from François Fénelon’s romance The Adventures of Telemachus, first published in 1699. In this painting, Calypso motions her nymphs to be silent when their songs about Telemachus’s father, Ulysses, cause him sorrow. More on this painting

Angelica Kauffman RA (Chur 1741 – Rome 1807)

Penelope taking down the Bow of Ulysses, c. 1768

Oil on canvas

1270 x 1016 mm (50 x 40 in )

National Trust, Saltram, Devon

After his purported death Ulysses’s wife is pursued by suitors, as related in Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey. In an attempt to stave them off, Penelope prepares the bow, quiver and axes and arrows for the competition of whosoever could emulate her husband’s feat of shooting an arrow between twelve axe-rings placed in a row, she would marry. More on this painting

After Angelica Kauffmann

The Return of Telemachus

Oil on canvas

39 3/4 by 50 in.

Private collection

Angelica Kauffmann

Penelope Waken by Eurykleia, c. 1772

Oil on canvas

Vorarlberger Landesmuseum, Bregenz.

The old woman,  Eurykleia, clambered upstairs, chuckling aloud as she went, to tell her mistress her beloved husband was home. Her knees were working away, though she tottered as she went. She stood by the bed and spoke to her lady, saying: ‘Penelope, dear child, wake and see with your own eyes what you’ve longed for all this time. Odysseus is here, he is home after so many years. He has killed all the proud Suitors who plagued the house, wasted his stores, and bullied his son.’ More on Penelope Waken by Eurykleia

Her friendship with Reynolds was criticized in 1775 by fellow Academician Nathaniel Hone, who courted controversy in 1775 with his satirical picture The Conjurer. It was seen to attack the fashion for Italian Renaissance art and to ridicule Sir Joshua Reynolds, leading the Royal Academy to reject the painting. It also originally included a nude caricature of Kauffman in the top left corner, which he painted out after she complained to the academy. The combination of a little girl and an old man has also been seen as symbolic of Kauffman and Reynolds's closeness, age difference, and rumoured affair.

Circle Angelica Kauffmann

Abraham casts out his concubine Hagar and their son Ishmael

Oil on canvas

90 x 72 cm

Private collection

Hagar is a biblical person in the Book of Genesis Chapter 16. She was an Egyptian handmaid of Sarah, who gave her to Abraham "to wife" to bear a child. The product of the union was Abraham's firstborn, Ishmael, the progenitor of the Ishmaelites.

After Sarah gave birth to Isaac, and the tension between the women returned. At a celebration after Isaac was weaned, Sarah found the teenage Ishmael mocking her son, and demanded that Abraham send Hagar and her son away. She declared that Ishmael would not share in Isaac's inheritance. Abraham was greatly distressed but God told Abraham to do as his wife commanded because God's promise would be carried out through both Isaac and Ishmael.

The name Hagar originates from the Book of Genesis, and is only alluded to in the Qur'an. She is considered Abraham's second wife in the Islamic faith and acknowledged in all Abrahamic faiths. In mainstream Christianity, she is considered a concubine to Abraham. More on Hagar

Angelica Kauffmann  (1741–1807)

Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well, c.1796

Oil on canvas

Height: 123.5 cm (48.6 in); Width: 158.5 cm (62.4 in)

Neue Pinakothek

Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.. Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink', you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." More on the Samaritan woman

Angelica Kauffmann

Saint Mary of Egypt, c. 1807

Oil on canvas

30¼ x 25½ in. (77 x 64.8 cm.)

Private collection

Mary of Egypt, also known as Maria Aegyptica, was born somewhere in Egypt, and at the age of twelve she ran away from her parents to the city of Alexandria. Here she lived an extremely dissolute life. In her Vita it states that she often refused the money offered for her sexual favors, as she was driven "by an insatiable and an irrepressible passion," and that she mainly lived by begging, supplemented by spinning flax.

After seventeen years of this lifestyle, she traveled to Jerusalem for the Great Feasts of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. She undertook the journey as a sort of "anti-pilgrimage," stating that she hoped to find in the pilgrim crowds at Jerusalem even more partners in her lust. She paid for her passage by offering sexual favors to other pilgrims. She tried to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for the celebration, she was barred from doing so by an unseen force. Realizing that this was because of her impurity, she was struck with remorse, and upon seeing an icon of the Theotokos (the Virgin Mary) outside the church, she prayed for forgiveness and promised to give up the world (i.e., become an ascetic). Then she attempted again to enter the church, and this time was permitted in. After venerating the relic of the true cross, she returned to the icon to give thanks, and heard a voice telling her, "If you cross the Jordan, you will find glorious rest." The next morning, she crossed the Jordan and retired to the desert to live the rest of her life as a hermit in penitence.

Approximately one year before her death, she recounted her life to Saint Zosimas of Palestine, who unexpectedly met her in the desert, she was completely naked and almost unrecognizable as human. She narrated her life's story to him, manifesting marvellous clairvoyance. She asked him to meet her the following year, and bring her Holy Communion. When he fulfilled her wish, she crossed the river to get to him by walking on the surface of the water. The next year, Zosimas travelled to the same spot where he first met her, and found her lying there dead. He buried her body with the assistance of a passing lion. More Mary of Egypt

Manner of Angelica Kauffmann

Saint Agnes and Agatha Surrounded by Five Female Saints including Saints Lucy and Apollonia

Oil on copper

23 x 33 cm. 

Private collection

Agnes was a popular saint about whom little is known, Agnes is said to have been a beautiful, wealthy Roman maiden who had, in childhood, dedicated herself to God. Some say that a rejected suitor betrayed her to authorities; others say that she was asked at 13 to sacrifice to the gods and marry, both of which she refused. Legends tell of her being thrown into a brothel, where her purity was miraculously preserved. Having escaped that fate, she was martyred. Her emblem in art is the lamb because of the similarity between her name and the Latin word for lamb, agnus. More on Agnes of Rome

Saint Agatha of Sicily (231 AD – 251 AD) is a Christian saint and virgin martyr. Agatha was born at Catania or Palermo, Sicily, and she was martyred in approximately 251. She is one of seven women, who, along with the Blessed Virgin Mary, are commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass.

 Amongst the tortures she underwent was the cutting off of her breasts with pincers. More on Saint Agatha of Sicily

Lucy was a victim of the wave of persecution of Christians that occurred late in the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian. References to her are found in early Roman sacramentaries and, at Syracuse, in an inscription dating from 400 ce. As evidence of her early fame, two churches are known to have been dedicated to her in Britain before the 8th century, at a time when the land was largely pagan. More Saint Lucy

Saint Apollonia was one of a group of virgin martyrs who suffered in Alexandria during a local uprising against the Christians prior to the persecution of Decius. According to legend, her torture included having all of her teeth violently pulled out or shattered. For this reason, she is popularly regarded as the patroness of dentistry and those suffering from toothache or other dental problems.

Tongs (sometimes with a tooth in them), depicted holding a cross or martyr's palm or crown  More on Saint Apollonia 

From 1769 until 1782 Kauffman was an annual exhibitor with the Royal Academy, sending sometimes as many as seven pictures, generally on classical or allegoric subjects. One of the most notable was Leonardo expiring in the Arms of Francis the First (1778).

After Angelica Kauffmann

A Sibyl of Antiquity

Oil on canvas

40" x 29"

Private collection

The sibyls were prophetesses or oracles in Ancient Greece.[1][2] The earliest sibyls, according to legend, prophesied at holy sites.[3] Their prophecies were influenced by divine inspiration from a deity, originally at Delphi and Pessinos. In Late Antiquity, various writers attested to the existence of sibyls in Greece, Italy, the Levant, and Asia Minor. More on sibyls

Angelica Kauffmann

FLORA

Oil on canvas

30 by 25 in.; 76.2 by 63.5 cm

Private collection

In Roman mythology, Flora was a Sabine-derived goddess of flowers and of the season of spring – a symbol for nature and flowers (especially the may-flower). While she was otherwise a relatively minor figure in Roman mythology, being one among several fertility goddesses, her association with the spring gave her particular importance at the coming of springtime, as did her role as goddess of youth. Her Greek counterpart was Chloris. More on Flora

While Kauffman produced portraits, and self-portraits, she identified herself primarily as a history painter, an unusual designation for a woman artist in the 18th century. History painting was considered the most elite and lucrative category in academic painting during this time period and, under the direction of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the Royal Academy made a strong effort to promote it to a native audience more interested in commissioning and buying portraits and landscapes. Despite the popularity that Kauffman enjoyed in British society, and her success there as an artist, she was disappointed by the relative apathy of the British towards history painting. Ultimately, she left Britain for Rome, where history painting was better established, held in higher esteem and patronized.

Circle Angelica Kauffmann

Una and the Lion, circa 1770 - 1780

Oil on paper on canvas

50.5 × 61 cm

Private collection

This painting was inspired by Edmund Spenser’s sixteenth-century poem The Faerie Queen. In the poem, Una is the beautiful young daughter of a king and queen who have been imprisoned by a ferocious dragon. Una undertakes a quest to free her parents, but on her journey she encounters a fierce lion. The lion is so captivated by Una’s innocence and beauty that he abandons his plan to eat her, and vows instead to become her protector and companion. 

History painting, as defined in academic art theory, was classified as the most elevated category. Its subject matter was the representation of human actions based on themes from history, mythology, literature, and scripture. This required extensive learning in biblical and Classical literature, knowledge of art theory and a practical training that included the study of anatomy from the male nude. Most women were denied access to such training, especially the opportunity to draw from nude models; yet Kauffman managed to cross the gender boundary. It is unclear as to how she gained the knowledge of the male anatomy that she had, but there is speculation that she studied plaster casts of statues. The male characters in her artworks are seen as being more feminine than most painters would choose to display, which may be a result of her lack of formal training on male anatomy.

Follower Angelica Kauffmann

Portrait of a Grecian Nude

Oil on canvas

39 x 36 in (99 x 91.4 cm)

Private collection

In 1781, after her first husband's death (she had long been separated from him), she married Antonio Zucchi (1728–1795), a Venetian artist then resident in England. Shortly afterwards she retired to Rome, where she befriended, among others, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; yet, always restive, she wanted to do more and lived for another 25 years with much of her old prestige intact.

Angelica Kauffman RA (Chur 1741 – Rome 1807)

Self-portrait of the Artist hesitating between the Arts of Music and Painting

Oil on canvas

1800 x 2490 x 185 mm

National Trust Collection, Nostell Priory, West

A young woman dressed in an immaculate white dress stands between two figures who can be identified as the personifications of music and painting. The scene depicts the youthful dilemma of the Austro-Swiss artist, undecided about which of her two talents she should pursue. Most unusually for a woman at this period, Kauffman chose to become a painter and went on to establish a successful career in Britain. She was in her fifties when she produced the painting shown here and perhaps enjoyed looking back at her youthful self-determination. More on this painting

In 1782, Kauffman's father died, as did her husband in 1795. In 1794, she painted, Self-Portrait Hesitating Between Painting and Music (See above), in which she emphasizes the difficult choice she had faced in choosing painting as her sole career, in dedication to her mother's death. She continued at intervals to contribute to the Royal Academy in London, her last exhibit being in 1797. After this she produced little, and in 1807 she died in Rome, being honored by a splendid funeral under the direction of Canova. The entire Academy of St Luke, with numerous ecclesiastics and virtuosi, followed her to her tomb in Sant'Andrea delle Fratte, and, as at the burial of Raphael, two of her best pictures were carried in procession. More on Angelica Kauffman

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