Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
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>
Visit to Tomb
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
Aeneas
architecture
child
children
classical myths: gods and heroes
crowd
Dido
Eros / Cupid
features
groups
man
monuments
people
religion and belief
sunset
times of the day
tomb
tower
townscape, distant
townscapes / man-made features
woman
<p>Turner's final exhibits at the Royal Academy were four pictures of Dido and Aeneas. According to his housekeeper he worked on all four paintings 'in rotation.'</p><p>This canvas is the third in the series. In the foreground are Dido, Queen of Carthage (in white) and Aeneas (in red), accompanied by Cupid in disguise. They are visiting the tomb of Dido's husband, Sychaeus, in the hope that his memory might restrain her fatal passion for Aeneas. Turner showed the picture with a line from his poem, The Fallacies of Hope: 'The sun went down in wrath at such deceit.'</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
23 July 2001 – 23 June 2002
2002-06-23
23 July 2001 – 23 June 2002
2002-06-23
2001-07-23
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-07-23
Italy and the Classical Tradition
Collection based display
15 July 2002 – 21 May 2007
2007-05-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-07-15
Exhibiting Turner
Collection based display
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
10 September 2014 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
10 September 2014 – 25 January 2015
2015-01-25
2014-09-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
24 February 2015 – 24 May 2015
2015-05-24
2015-02-24
J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, USA)
20 June 2015 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
2015-06-20
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum (San Francisco, USA)
http://www.famsf.org
2014-09-10
Late Turner: Painting Set Free
Exhibition
24 February 2015 – 31 January 2016
2016-01-31
24 February 2015 – 24 May 2015
2015-05-24
2015-02-24
J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, USA)
20 June 2015 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
2015-06-20
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum
31 October 2015 – 31 January 2016
2016-01-31
2015-10-31
Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Canada)
http://www.ago.net
2015-02-24
Late Turner
Loan-out
7 November 2017 – 10 February 2018
2018-02-10
7 November 2017 – 10 February 2018
2018-02-10
2017-11-07
Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes (Mexico City, Mexico)
2017-11-07
Mexican Red: The Cochineal
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 Visit to the Tomb
support: 914 × 1219 mm
frame: 1296 × 1607 × 185 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the <a href="/search?gid=999999781" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Turner Bequest</a> 1856
<p>
Turner's final exhibits at the Royal Academy were four pictures of Dido and Aeneas. According to his housekeeper he worked on all four <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>paintings</span></a> 'in rotation.'</p>
<p>
This <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>canvas</span></a> is the third in the series. In the foreground are Dido, Queen of Carthage (in white) and Aeneas (in red), accompanied by Cupid in disguise. They are visiting the tomb of Dido's husband, Sychaeus, in the hope that his memory might restrain her fatal passion for Aeneas. Turner showed the picture 
with a line from his poem, The Fallacies of Hope: 'The sun went down in wrath at such deceit.'</p>
Display caption
2004-09-08T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>431. </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-visit-to-the-tomb-n00555" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00555</span></a>]<b> The Visit to the Tomb</b> Exh. 1850</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (555)</p>
<p>Canvas, 36 × 48 (91·5 × 122)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (32, ‘The visit to the Tomb’ 4'0" × 3'0"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1905.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1850 (373); Whitechapel 1953 (101); Edinburgh 1968 (24, repr.).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Thornbury 1862, i, p. 349; 1877, p. 467; Hamerton 1879, pp. 297–8; Bell 1901, p. 159 no. 267; Armstrong 1902, p. 236; MacColl 1920, p. 26; Davies 1946, pp. 152–3, 186; Finberg 1961, pp. 427, 511 no. 588; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, p. 73, pl. 127; Ziff 1964, pp. 24–7, pl. 2; Lindsay 1966<sup>2</sup>, pp. 52–3; Gage 1969, pp. 98, 187, 244 n. 105; Reynolds 1969, pp. 204–5, pl. 176; Herrmann 1975, pp. 55, pl. 182; Fehl 1976, p. 129, pl. 22; Wilton 1979, pp. 233, 244.</p>
<p>Exhibited in 1850 with the line:</p>
<p>‘The sun went down in wrath at such deceit.’</p>
<p align="right">—<i>MS., Fallacies of Hope</i>.</p>
<p>Jerrold Ziff has pointed out that Turner probably took this incident from Dryden's translation of Ovid's <i>Epistles: Dido to Æneas</i>.</p>
<p><i>The Times</i> for 4 May 1850 asked ‘what tomb?’ and indeed there is no description of such a visit in Virgil, though Dido does take Æneas to see how the building of Carthage is progressing. The reference is presumably to the tomb of Dido's husband, Sychaeus, in whose memory she tried to control her love for Æneas; Turner had shown the tomb in his picture of <i>Dido building Carthage</i>, exhibited in 1815 (see No. 131 [<span>N00498</span>]). The two figures of Dido and Æneas, on the left, are accompanied by Cupid, substituting for Ascanius as in No. 429 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-mercury-sent-to-admonish-aeneas-n00553" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00553</span></a>]. For contemporary reviews of this picture see No. 429 [<span>N00553</span>].</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
2004-07-16T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults Aeneas architecture child children classical myths: gods and heroes crowd Dido Eros / Cupid features groups man monuments people religion and belief sunset times of the day tomb tower townscape, distant townscapes / man-made features woman