Oil paint on mahogany
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>
Shadrach Meshach and Abednego in Burning Fiery Furnace
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Abednego
adults
architecture
Bible: Old Testament
crowd
Daniel, chapter 3
furnace
groups
heating and lighting
man
Meshach
Nebuchadnezzar
objects
people
religion and belief
Shadrach
townscape
townscapes / man-made features
woman
<p>Turner exhibited this picture in 1832, with a passage from the Bible (Daniel iii, 26). This told how Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego emerged unharmed from the fiery furnace they had been thrown into for refusing to worship Nebuchadnezzar's idol (visible in the distance).</p><p>Turner painted this to accompany a biblical picture by his friend George Jones, shown in the same exhibition (and also now in Tate's collection). Jones described this as 'Another instance of Turner's friendly contests in Art', adding that though the Hanging Committee gave Turner's picturethe best position, Turner had them swapped so that Jones would benefit.</p><p><em>Gallery label, February 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint mahogany
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
21 September 2009 – 19 September 2010
2010-09-19
21 September 2009 – 24 January 2010
2010-01-24
2009-09-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
22 February 2010 – 23 May 2010
2010-05-23
2010-02-22
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (Paris, France)
2009-09-21
Turner and the Masters
Exhibition
22 February 2010 – 19 September 2010
2010-09-19
21 September 2009 – 3 January 2010
2010-01-03
2009-09-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-02-22
Turner and the Masters
Loan-out
5 September 2015 – 3 January 2016
2016-01-03
5 September 2015 – 3 January 2016
2016-01-03
2015-09-05
Rijksmuseum Twenthe (Enschede, Netherlands)
5 September 2015 – 3 January 2016
2016-01-03
2015-09-05
Museum de Fundatie (Zwolle, Netherlands)
2015-09-05
Danger and Beauty - William Turner and the Tradition of the Sublime
Loan-out
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the Burning Fiery Furnace
support: 918 × 708 mm
frame: 1230 × 1040 × 90 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 exhibited this picture in 1832, with a passage from the Bible (Daniel iii, 26). This told how Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego emerged unharmed from the fiery furnace they had been thrown into for refusing to worship Nebuchadnezzar's idol (visible in the distance).</p>
<p>
Turner painted this to accompany a biblical picture by his friend George Jones, shown in the same exhibition (and also now in Tate's collection). Jones described this  as 'Another instance of Turner's friendly contests  in Art', adding that though the Hanging Committee gave Turner's picturethe best position, Turner had them swapped so that Jones would benefit.  
</p>
Display caption
2004-02-10T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>346. </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-shadrach-meshach-and-abednego-in-the-burning-fiery-furnace-n00517" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00517</span></a>]<b> Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego in the Burning Fiery Furnace Exh.</b> 1832</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (517)</p>
<p>Mahogany, 36 1/16 × 27 7/8 (91·5 × 71)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (41, ‘Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego’ 3'0" × 2' 3/4"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1905.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1832 (355); R.A. 1974–5 (B39).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Ruskin 1857 (1903–12, xiii, pp. 135–6, 156–7); Thornbury 1862, i, p. 321; ii, pp. 112, 183–4; 1877, pp. 273, 324–5, 448; Bell 1901, p. 120 no. 181; Armstrong 1902, p. 232; Whitley 1930, p. 235; Falk 1938, p. 136; Davies 1946, p. 186; Finberg 1961, pp. 335, 493 no. 381; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, p. 44; Lindsay 1966, p. 174; Gage 1969, p. 243 n. 95; Reynolds 1969, p. 160; Reynolds 1969<sup>2</sup>, pp. 74–5, pl. 11; Wilton 1979, p. 210; Gage 1980, pp. 5–6.</p>
<p>Exhibited at the R.A. in 1832 with no actual title but the text:</p>
<p>‘Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, come forth and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came forth of the midst of the fire.’—<i>Daniel</i>, chap. iii, ver. 26.</p>
<p>The picture was painted in friendly competition with George Jones who related the circumstances in his manuscript reminiscences now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford: ‘Another instance of Turner's friendly contests in Art, arose, from his asking me what I intended to paint for the ensuing Exhibition. I told him that I had chosen the delivery of Shadrach Mesheck, and Abednego from the Fiery Furnace—“a good subject, I will paint it also, what size do you propose?” Kitcat. “Well, upright or length way,”? upright. “Well I'll paint it so—have you ordered your <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/panel" title="Glossary definition for 'Panel'"><span>panel</span></a>”? no—I shall order it tomorrow—"Order two and desire one to be sent to me, and mind I never will come into your room without inquiring what is on the easel; that I may not see it—Both pictures were painted and exhibited, our brother <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>Academicians</span></a> thought that Turner had secretly taken an advantage of me and were surprised at our mutual contentment little suspecting our previous friendly arrangement; they very justly gave his picture a much superior position to mine, but he used his utmost endeavours to get my work changed to the place his occupied &amp; his placed where mine hung, they were exactly the same size’ (Gage 1980, <i>loc. cit.</i>).</p>
<p>Jones' picture was bought by Robert Vernon and is now also in the Tate Gallery, and his account is supported by the fact that both pictures are on identical mahogany panels, similar in size, supplied by R. Davy. Turner's panel is inscribed on the back, ‘JMW Turner RA/N<sup>o</sup> 2 ’, perhaps by Turner himself when sending the work in to the Royal Academy.</p>
<p>Only one reviewer, writing in the <i>Examiner</i> for 10 June 1832, seems to have compared the two works and that not very charitably: ‘All that can be said for his [Jones'] <i>Nebuchadnezzar</i>, No. 256 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-valley-with-a-distant-bridge-and-tower-n05505" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05505</span></a>], is, that it is not so absurdly treated by him as by his brother academician Mr. Turner, who, in No. 355 [<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>], has painted the same subject without the slightest display of character or expression, but with his accustomed ignorance of the human form.’ This condemnation of Turner's figures was echoed by the <i>Athenacum</i> for 16 June. <i>Fraser's Magazine</i> for July dismissed it as one of Turner's ‘unintelligible pieces of insanity’, and the <i>Morning Post</i> of 29 May as ‘a kind of phantasmagoric extravaganza ... in which the reds have prevailed’, which ‘ought itself to be put into the mouth of a fiery furnace’. The <i>Spectator</i>, 12 May, exclaimed that ‘its glare is scorching; we hope the Academy is insured—or perhaps the picture is painted on <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> of asbestos’, while the <i>Literary Gazette</i> for 19 May said that it had been hung opposite a sea-piece ‘in order to prevent the room from becoming damp. Certainly, since the introduction of chrome, more fires have broken out in art than formerly; and this is one of them.’</p>
<p>An exception to this negative criticism was the <i>Library of Fine Arts</i>
for June 1832, which described the picture as ‘one of those extraordinary flights in which Mr. Turner is so often so fond of indulging, to the astonishment and unfeigned delight of one half of the world of art, and the astonishment and self-conceited supercilious remarks of the other ... The figures are almost unintelligible—they flit before us, as they ought to do, in a superhuman manner, but to our mind it is impossible to conceive a finer effect of lurid light than is here portrayed. The picture is a small one ... we should delight to see it attempted on a larger scale, believing it would be a great trial even to Mr. Turner's powers to give a large finished picture of what would, if successful, be a truly wonderful performance.’ For Richard Westmacott's comment on this picture see No. 342 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-childe-harolds-pilgrimage-italy-n00516" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00516</span></a>].</p>
<p>The paint structure of this work is complex, with some details having been painted in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a>. There are wide <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/b/bitumen" title="Glossary definition for 'Bitumen'"><span>bituminous</span></a> cracks in the thicker paint and dark shadows.</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
Abednego adults architecture Bible: Old Testament crowd Daniel, chapter 3 furnace groups heating and lighting man Meshach Nebuchadnezzar objects people religion and belief Shadrach townscape townscapes / man-made features woman