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>
Reclining Venus
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
actions: postures and motions
adults
Aphrodite / Venus
classical myths: gods and heroes
couch
female
furnishings
mirror
nudes
objects
people
reclining
religion and belief
woman
<p>This unfinished canvas is one of several works Turner painted in Rome in 1828. He shared lodgings there with artist Charles Eastlake, who may have had a hand in painting the woman’s face. The canvas was possibly inspired by Titian’s famous painting Venus of Urbino. Turner could have seen it in the Uffizi gallery when he visited the Italian city of Florence on his way to Rome. Paintings of figures like this one are not traditionally associated with Turner.</p><p><em>Gallery label, July 2020</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
18 March 2001 – 20 May 2001
2001-05-20
18 March 2001 – 20 May 2001
2001-05-20
2001-03-18
Whitechapel Gallery (London, UK)
http://www.whitechapel.org/
2001-03-18
Whitechapel Centenary
Loan-out
13 August 2001 – 23 June 2002
2002-06-23
13 August 2001 – 23 June 2002
2002-06-23
2001-08-13
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-08-13
Painting Landscape and History
Collection based display
28 April 2012 – 3 July 2016
2016-07-03
28 April 2012
2012-04-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-04-28
The Body
Collection based display
6 April 2020 – 27 November 2022
2022-11-27
6 April 2019
2019-04-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2020-04-06
Clore 102
Collection based display
12 October 2023 – 28 January 2024
2024-01-28
12 October 2023 – 28 January 2024
2024-01-28
2023-10-12
Reggia di Venaria Reale (Turin, Italy)
2023-10-12
Turner & Mythology
Loan-out
Reclining Venus
support: 1753 × 2489 mm
frame: 1855 × 2595 × 40 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
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<p>This unfinished canvas is one of several works Turner painted in Rome in 1828. He shared lodgings there with artist Charles Eastlake, who may have had a hand in painting the woman’s face. The canvas was possibly inspired by Titian’s famous painting Venus of Urbino. Turner could have seen it in the Uffizi gallery when he visited the Italian city of Florence on his way to Rome. Paintings of figures like this one are not traditionally associated with Turner.  </p>
</div>

Display caption
2020-07-01T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p>[from]<b> Works Painted in Rome, 1828–9</b></p>
<p>TURNER went to Rome for the second time in 1828, leaving England in August and arriving in October; he stayed until early January 1829, and was back in England in February. Sir Charles Eastlake told Thornbury that they both stayed at 12 Piazza Mignanelli and that Turner ‘painted there the “View of Orvieto”, the “Regulus” and the “Medea” [Nos. 292 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-view-of-orvieto-painted-in-rome-n00511" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00511</span></a>], 294 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-regulus-n00519" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00519</span></a>] and 293 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-vision-of-medea-n00513" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00513</span></a>]]. Those pictures were exhibited in Rome in some rooms which Turner subsequently occupied at the Quattro Fontane. The foreign artists who went to see them could make nothing of them’. However, Eastlake reported a more mixed reception in a letter to England in February 1829: ‘More than a thousand persons went to see his works when exhibited, so you can imagine how astonished, enraged or delighted the different schools of artists were, at seeing things with methods so new, so daring and excellences so unequivocal. The angry critics have, I believe, talked most, and it is possible you may hear of <i>general</i> severity of judgment, but many did justice, and many more were fain to admire what they confessed they dared not imitate.’</p>
<p>Turner advertised in the <i>Diario di Roma</i> for 17 December 1828 that he was to exhibit ‘<i>due Paesaggi</i>’ for a week at the Palazzo Trulli. These John Gage identifies as <i>Orvieto</i> and <i>Regulus</i>, though it is known that <i>Medea</i> was on view on 17 December. In a letter of February 1829, Eastlake confirmed that Turner had exhibited these three works, as well as having begun ‘eight or ten pictures’ (for a later letter by Eastlake, see No. 328a).</p>
<p>A number of <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> from the Turner Bequest are identical in their coarse <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>, the form of the original stretcher, and the way in which the canvas was fastened to the stretcher (with upholsterer's sprigs) to <i>Orvieto</i> and <i>Medea</i> (<i>Regulus</i> is on a similar canvas, but has lost its original stretcher and form of attachment). These are the three figure subjects, Nos. 296 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-reclining-venus-n05498" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05498</span></a>], 297 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-two-recumbent-nude-figures-n05517" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05517</span></a>] and 298 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-outline-of-a-venus-pudica-n05509" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05509</span></a>], and <i>Southern <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></i>, No. 299 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-southern-landscape-n05510" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05510</span></a>]. Other works probably from the group are Nos. 300 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-southern-landscape-with-an-aqueduct-and-waterfall-n05506" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05506</span></a>] and 301 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-italian-landscape-probably-civita-di-bagnoregio-n05473" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05473</span></a>]. Other candidates for works begun in Rome are 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> sketches on a similar though even rather coarser canvas, Nos. 302–17; see p. 160. These sketches, and one of the larger unfinished pictures (No. 300), shows signs of having been rolled, presumably for ease of despatch to London. Both types of coarse canvas would seem to be Italian in origin, presumably purchased in Rome. Probably also from this trip are the smaller sketches on millboard. Nos. 318–27.</p>
<p>Turner had in fact written from Paris on II August 1828 to Charles Eastlake, who was already in Rome, asking him to secure one or two canvases, 59 1/4 × 98 1/2 in., so that he could begin straight away on a landscape for Lord Egremont. This is generally held to be <i>Palestrina</i> (No. 295 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-palestrina-composition-n06283" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N06283</span></a>]), which measures 55 1/4 × 98 in. but is in fact on a fine canvas.</p>
<p>Turner himself reported his progress in a letter to Sir Francis Chantrey of 6 November 1828: ‘I have confined myself to the painting department...and having finished <i>one</i>, am about the second, and getting on with Lord E's [presumably <i>Palestrina</i>], which I began the very first touch at Rome; but as folk here talked that I would show them <i>not</i>, I finished a small three feet four to stop their gabbling’; this last was presumably <i>Orvieto</i>.</p>
<p>Eastlake's account in Thornbury goes on, ‘When those same works were packed to be sent to England, I advised him to have the cover covered with waxed cloth, as the pictures without it might be exposed to wet. Turner thanked me, and said the advice was important; “for”, he added, “if any wet gets to them, they will be destroyed.” This indicates his practice of preparing his pictures with a kind of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/t/tempera" title="Glossary definition for 'Tempera'"><span>tempera</span></a>, a method which, before the surface was varnished, was not waterproof [in fact analysis has not revealed any tempera, though Turner did quite often use <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> on his oils and in at least one case, No. 300, a picture apparently from this group seems to have suffered losses to its water-soluble glazes]. The pictures referred to were in fact not finished; nor could any of his exhibited pictures be said to be finished till he had worked on them when they were on the walls of 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>’. This is supported by the review of <i>Orvieto</i> in the <i>Morning Chronicle</i> for 3 May 1830 quoted under <i>Pilate washing his Hands</i> (No. 332 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-pilate-washing-his-hands-n00510" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00510</span></a>]). Although Turner had hoped that his Rome paintings would reach London in time for the 1829 Exhibition, there were shipping delays and <i>Orvieto</i> and <i>Palestrina</i> were not exhibited until 1830, nor <i>Medea</i> until 1831; <i>Regulus</i> was not exhibited until 1837.</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Thornbury 1862, i, p. 221; 1877, p. 100; Finberg 1961, pp. 307–11; Gage 1968, pp. 679–80; Gage 1980, pp. 118–20, 125, 127, 132.</p>
<p><b>296. </b>[<span>N05498</span>]<b> Reclining Venus</b> 1828</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (5498)</p>
<p>Canvas, 69 × 98 (175 × 249)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (268, ‘I (Academy figure)’, no dimensions given; identified 1946, ? by chalk number on back); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1947.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> Whitechapel 1953 (84).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Davies 1946, pp. 161, 190; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, pp. 45–6, 76, pl. 89; Lindsay 1966, p. 176; Gage 1968, pp. 679; Gage 1969, p. 91; Reynolds 1969, pp. 137–8, pl. 123.</p>
<p>The canvas is very coarse and is attached to the back of the stretcher by long bent-over sprigs, a characteristic of pictures known to have been executed in Rome during Turner's visit of 1828–9 (see p. 170). The position of the figure's right arm has twice been altered and the picture is unfinished. The receding arcade in the distance is thinly painted over a roughly sketched outline of unrelated forms.</p>
<p>The picture would seem to have been intended as a tribute or challenge to Titian's famous <i>Venus of Urbino</i>, which Turner could have seen in the Uffizi when he passed through Florence on the way to Rome in September 1828.</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
2004-10-07T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults Aphrodite / Venus classical myths: gods and heroes couch female furnishings mirror nudes objects people reclining religion and belief woman