Oil paint on canvas
Italy
Tate Collection
Works with images
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Robert Vernon
Oil paintings
Collection
Turner owned by Tate
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558" aria-label="More by Joseph Mallord William Turner" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a>
Golden Bough
Presented by Robert Vernon 1847
actions: postures and motions
adults
agriculture, gardening & fishing
animals: reptiles
architectural fragments
architecture
branch
building
building - non-specific
classical
classical
classical myths: gods and heroes
cliff
countries and continents
dance
Fates
features
female
group
groups
Italy
lake
Lake Avernus
Lake Avernus
landscape
leisure and pastimes
literature and fiction
music and entertainment
mythical, religious, fictional
natural features (non-UK)
nudes
objects
people
periods and styles
places
reclining
religion and belief
ruins
Sibyl / Sibylla
sickle
snake
townscapes / man-made features
tree
Underworld
valley
Virgil, ‘Aeneid’
water: inland
woman
<p>This subject comes from Virgil’s poem, the Aeneid. The Trojan hero, Aeneas, has come to Cumae to consult the Sibyl, a prophetess. She tells him he can only enter the Underworld to meet the ghost of his father if he offers Proserpine a golden bough cut from a sacred tree.</p><p>Turner shows the Sibyl holding a sickle and the freshly cut bough,in front of Lake Avernus, the legendary gateway to the Underworld. The dancing figures are the Fates. Like the snake in the foreground, they hint at death and the mysteries of the Underworld, amidst the beauty of the landscape.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
16 October 2003 – 18 January 2004
2004-01-18
16 October 2003 – 18 January 2004
2004-01-18
2003-10-16
Mori Arts Centre (Tokyo, Japan)
2003-10-16
Happiness: A Survival Guide for Art and Life
Loan-out
15 May 2004 – 16 May 2005
2005-05-16
15 May 2004 – 5 September 2004
2004-09-05
2004-05-15
Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Canada)
http://www.ago.net
16 October 2004 – 16 January 2005
2005-01-16
2004-10-16
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (Paris, France)
10 February 2005 – 16 May 2005
2005-05-16
2005-02-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-05-15
Turner Whistler Monet
Exhibition
20 May 2007 – 20 July 2007
2007-07-20
20 May 2007 – 20 July 2007
2007-07-20
2007-05-20
State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow, Russia)
2007-05-20
Europe, Russia, Europe
Loan-out
16 November 2008 – 7 June 2009
2009-06-07
23 November 2008 – 22 February 2009
2009-02-22
2008-11-23
Palazzo dei Diamanti (Ferrara, Italy)
23 March 2009 – 7 June 2009
2009-06-07
2009-03-23
National Galleries of Scotland (Edinburgh, UK)
15 July 2009 – 25 October 2009
2009-10-25
2009-07-15
Szépmüvészeti Múzeum (Budapest, Hungary)
http://www.szepmuveszeti.hu/
2008-11-16
Turner and Italy
Loan-out
8 November 2010 – 5 January 2011
2011-01-05
8 November 2010 – 5 January 2011
2011-01-05
2010-11-08
Sayyid Faisal Bin Ali Museum (Muscat, Sultanate of Oman)
2010-11-08
The Art of Seeing Nature: Masterpieces from Tate Britain
Loan-out
26 March 2013 – 25 August 2013
2013-08-25
26 March 2013 – 6 May 2013
2013-05-06
2013-03-26
Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum (Hiroshima, Japan)
14 May 2013 – 7 July 2013
2013-07-07
2013-05-14
University Art Museum (Toyko, Japan)
13 July 2013 – 25 August 2013
2013-08-25
2013-07-13
Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art (Shizuoka, Japan)
http://www.spmoa.shizuoka.shizuoka.jp
2013-03-26
Soseki Natsume and Art
Loan-out
10 September 2014 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
10 September 2014 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
2014-09-10
Taft Museum of Art (Cincinnati, USA)
http://www.taftmuseum.org
2014-09-10
Reciprocal loan for Late Turner
Loan-out
3 February 2017 – 21 May 2017
2017-05-21
3 February 2017 – 21 May 2017
2017-05-21
2017-02-03
Albertinum (Dresden, Germany)
2017-02-03
Beneath Italian Skies. German Painting of the 19th Century
Loan-out
27 January 2018 – 18 November 2018
2018-11-18
27 January 2018 – 20 May 2018
2018-05-20
2018-01-27
Turner Contemporary (Margate, UK)
15 September 2018 – 18 November 2018
2018-11-18
2018-09-15
Herbert Art Gallery & Museum (Coventry, UK)
http://www.theherbert.org
2018-01-27
A Journey to The Waste Land
Loan-out
21 March 2018 – 10 January 2021
2021-01-10
16 March 2020 – 10 January 2021
2021-01-10
2020-03-16
Musée Jacquemart-André (Paris, France)
2018-03-21
Turner Watercolours
Tate partnerships & programmes
16 October 2021 – 14 July 2023
2023-07-14
16 October 2021 – 6 March 2022
2022-03-06
2021-10-16
ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (Aarhus, Denmark)
18 May 2022 – 11 September 2022
2022-09-11
2022-05-18
Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (Barcelona, Spain)
http://www.mnac.es
8 October 2022 – 5 February 2023
2023-02-05
2022-10-08
National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin, Ireland)
http://www.nationalgallery.ie
3 March 2023 – 25 June 2023
2023-06-25
2023-03-03
Fondation Pierre Gianadda (Martigny, Switzerland)
2021-10-16
Turner Watercolours: Sun is God
Tate partnerships & programmes
28 October 2023 – 10 March 2024
2024-03-10
28 October 2023 – 10 March 2024
2024-03-10
2023-10-28
Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus (Munich, Germany)
2023-10-28
Turner at Lenbachhaus Munich
Loan-out
The Golden Bough
support: 1041 × 1638 mm
frame: 1455 × 2046 × 110 mm
Presented by <a href="/search?gid=999999978" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Robert Vernon</a> 1847
<p>
This subject comes from Virgil’s poem, the Aeneid. The Trojan hero, Aeneas, has come to Cumae to consult the Sibyl, a prophetess. She tells him he can only enter the Underworld to meet the ghost of his father if he offers Proserpine a golden bough cut from a sacred tree. </p>
<p> 
Turner shows the Sibyl holding a sickle and the freshly cut bough,in front of Lake Avernus, the legendary gateway to the Underworld. The dancing figures are the Fates. Like the snake in the foreground, they hint      at death and the mysteries  of the Underworld, amidst the beauty  of the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></a>. 
</p>

Display caption
2004-09-08T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>355. </b>[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-golden-bough-n00371" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00371</span></a>]<b> The Golden Bough Exh.</b> 1834</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (371)</p>
<p>Canvas, 41 × 64 1/2 (104 × 163·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Robert Vernon, purchased before its exhibition at the R.A. 1834 and given to the National Gallery 1847; transferred to the Tate Gallery 1929.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1834 (75); Toronto and Ottawa 1951 (8, repr.); Paris 1953 (81, pl. 33); Australian tour 1960 (11); Edinburgh 1968 (12).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> ‘The Vernon Gallery: The Golden Bough’ in <i>Art Journal</i> 1851, p. 132, engr. T. A. Prior; Hall ii 1851, no. 22, engr. T.A. Prior; Hall 1851<sup>2</sup>, p. 4 no. 7; Burnet 1852, p. 107, engr.; Cunningham 1852, pp. 29, 39, 44; Waagen 1854, i, p. 385; Ruskin 1857 and 1860 (1903–12, xiii, pp. 133, 159; vii, p. 421); Wornum 1857, ii, engr.; Thornbury 1862, i, p. 322; Wornum 1875, pp. 65–6, engr.; Thornbury 1877, p. 449; Vernon Heath, letter to <i>The Times</i> 23 April 1878; Hamerton 1879, pp. 261–3; Vernon Heath, <i>Recollections</i> 1892, pp. 5–7; Bell 1901, p. 124 no. 190; Armstrong 1902, pp. 192, 218; MacColl 1920, pp. 1–2; Whitley 1930, pp. 281–2; Falk 1938, pp. 159–60; Finberg 1961, pp. 347, 498 no. 447; Kitson 1964, p. 75, repr. p. 56; Lindsay 1966, pp. 72, 180; Reynolds 1969, p. 161, pl. 144; Gage 1974, pp. 74–5, pl. 13 (caption wrongly exchanged with pl. 16); Martin Meisel, ‘The Material Sublime: John Martin, Byron, Turner, and the Theater’, Kroeber and Walling 1978, pp. 230–2, pl. 63.</p>
<p>Exhibited in 1834 with the reference ‘(<i>M.S.</i>, “<i>Fallacies of Hope</i>”)’; Turner's original verses were, according to a report heard by Cunningham, suppressed by the Council of the R.A. Turner's original title (though not in his hand), number 1 on the list of his 1834 R.A. exhibits in the Tate Gallery archives, was also fuller: ‘The Sibyl [the ‘i’ and ‘y’ originally written the other way round] gathering the golden bough’, but the MS bears no verses. The <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> has sometimes been described under the fuller title of ‘Lake Avernus, the Fates and the Golden Bough’.</p>
<p>Ruskin, talking of <i>The Bay of Baiae</i> (No. 230 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-bay-of-baiae-with-apollo-and-the-sibyl-n00505" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00505</span></a>]), mentions the story of Deiphobe, the Cumaean Sibyl, and continues, ‘The fable seems to have made a strong impression on Turner's mind, the picture of the “Golden Bough” being a sequence to this; showing the Lake of Avernus, and Deiphobe, now bearing the golden bough—the guide of Æneas to the shades. In both these pictures there is a snake in the foreground among the fairest leafage, a type of terror or temptation, which is associated with the lovely <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscapes</span></a>; and it is curious that Turner seems to have exerted all his strength to give the most alluring loveliness to the soft descents of the Avernus lake’.</p>
<p>As Gage has pointed out, Turner seems to have followed Virgil's Æneid vi, 136 ff., in the translation of Christopher Pitt. Only this version, unlike Dryden's, refers to the Golden Bough and, in its reference to the ‘nether world’ of ‘the Queen of Stygian Jove’, supplies a pretext for Turner's possible references to Hades and the Fates. The snake, and what seems to be a fox playing with it below the tree on the right, are seen by Gage as a reference to the underworld because, according to Aristotle, they both live underground; Gage also sees the fragment of a frieze or sarcophagus as having a similar reference.</p>
<p>Two or three years after Vernon bought the picture his nephew Vernon Heath noticed that a figure in the foreground was splitting away. Turner went to see the picture ‘and in an instant exclaimed, “Why, this is only <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a>! I now remember all about it. I determined, the picture being all but finished, to paint a nude figure in the foreground, and with this intention went one night to the Life School at the Royal <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/academy" title="Glossary definition for 'Academy'"><span>Academy</span></a>, and made a sketch in my note-book. Finding, next day, that it was the exact size I required my figure to be, I carefully, by its outline, cut it out of the book and fixed it on to the picture, intending, when I had time, to paint the figure in properly. But I forgot this entirely, and do not think I should have remembered but for you.” ... The Sybil picture was then sent to Queen Anne Street and the present figure painted in.’ Gage identifies the original figure with the fragment in the British Museum, in oil on paper (CCCLXIV-395, repr. <i>op. cit.</i> pl. 17), which in fact shows three figures, identified by him as the Fates, which would have been replaced by the two figures now seen at the foot of the tree on the right.</p>
<p>There is a large colour sketch for the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> in the British Museum (CCLXIII-323).</p>
<p>Several critics saw Turner's conception as being let down by his execution. According to the <i>Athenaeum</i> for 10 May 1834 ‘the scene is wild and splendid—almost dim through excess of brightness, and the conception is wonderful, yet the slight and slovenly handling presses sorely upon us, and we mingle regret with admiration.’ A similar notice appeared in the <i>Morning Chronicle</i> for 26 May, which particularly attacked the picture's yellowness. On the other hand the <i>Literary Gazette</i>, 31 May, wrote that ‘Much criticism has been bestowed on these extraordinary performances’—this picture and <i>The Fountain of Indolence</i> (No. 354)—‘and to some they are no doubt justly liable. Yet by what living artist but Mr. Turner could they have been produced? Whose mind is so replete with rare and gorgeous landscape imagery? What other hand could have produced such streams of rich and lucid colour over the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvass</span></a> or have filled it with such masses—indistinct and unintelligible when closely inspected, but, when viewed at proper distance, assuming shape and meaning, and delighting the eye with the finest poetical and pictorial beauty?’</p>
<p>The composition was used, after Turner's death, by William Gordon for the setting for Act II, Scene 1 of a 1856 production of Shakespeare's <i>A Midsummer Night's Dream</i> (repr. Meisel, <i>op. cit.</i>, pl. 62).</p>
<p>The picture has suffered from considerable loss of glazes, particularly on and around the lake and on the buildings on the left.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, <i>The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner</i>, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-22T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults agriculture, gardening & fishing animals: reptiles architectural fragments architecture branch building building - non-specific classical classical classical myths: gods and heroes cliff countries and continents dance Fates features female group groups Italy lake Lake Avernus Lake Avernus landscape leisure and pastimes literature and fiction music and entertainment mythical, religious, fictional natural features (non-UK) nudes objects people periods and styles places reclining religion and belief ruins Sibyl / Sibylla sickle snake townscapes / man-made features tree Underworld valley Virgil, ‘Aeneid’ water: inland woman