Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
Italy
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
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>
Ancient Rome Agrippina Landing with Ashes Germanicus
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
Agrippina, mourning Germanicus, circa 19 AD
architecture
boat - non-specific
bridge
bridges and viaducts
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
classical
classical
countries and continents
dock
figure
group
groups
historical: imagined views
history
Italy
natural phenomena
people
periods and styles
places
reflection
river
Rome
Rome
Rome - non-specific
society
sunshine
townscape
townscapes / man-made features
transport: water
water: inland
weather
<p>Turner draws on his observations of Rome and his imagination to depict the city in ancient times. Rising from the mist it appears as a glowing mass of buildings that melts into the distance. Turner overlays this dreamlike cityscape with a story about love and devotion from ancient Italy. Agrippina was married to Roman general, Germanicus. When he was killed, Agrippina carried his ashes back to Rome in an urn. She was met on her journey by crowds of mourners.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2023</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
9 February 2007 – 28 April 2007
2007-04-28
9 February 2007 – 28 April 2007
2007-04-28
2007-02-09
Sir John Soane’s Museum (London, UK)
http://www.soane.org
2007-02-09
Soane and Turner
Loan-out
1 October 2007 – 21 September 2008
2008-09-21
1 October 2007 – 6 January 2008
2008-01-06
2007-10-01
National Gallery of Art (Washington DC, USA)
10 February 2008 – 18 May 2008
2008-05-18
2008-02-10
Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, USA)
http://www.DallasMuseumofArt.org
23 June 2008 – 21 September 2008
2008-09-21
2008-06-23
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
http://www.metmuseum.org
2007-10-01
JMW Turner
Tate partnerships & programmes
5 August 2009 – 26 July 2010
2010-07-26
5 August 2009 – 26 July 2010
2010-07-26
2009-08-05
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-05
Italian Odyssey
Collection based display
22 July 2010 – 9 April 2012
2012-04-09
6 August 2010 – 9 April 2012
2012-04-09
2010-08-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-07-22
Late Turner
Collection based display
21 April 2012 – 1 March 2020
2020-03-01
21 April 2012 – 1 March 2020
2020-03-01
2012-04-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-04-21
Turner Exhibited
Collection based display
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
22 February 2017 – 14 May 2017
2017-05-14
22 February 2017 – 14 May 2017
2017-05-14
2017-02-22
Frick Collection (New York, USA)
http://www.frick.org
2017-02-22
Turner’s Modern and Ancient Ports: Passages through Time
Loan-out
6 April 2020 – 27 November 2022
2022-11-27
6 April 2020
2020-04-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2020-04-06
Clore 107
Collection based display
13 March 2023
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2023-03-13
Gallery 107
Collection based display
Ancient Rome; Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus
support: 914 × 1219 mm
frame: 1230 × 1530 × 140 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
<div class="text">
<p>Turner draws on his observations of Rome and his imagination to depict the city in ancient times. Rising from the mist it appears as a glowing mass of buildings that melts into the distance. <br/>Turner overlays this dreamlike cityscape with a story about love and devotion from ancient Italy. Agrippina was married to Roman general, Germanicus. When he was killed, Agrippina carried his ashes back to Rome in an urn. She was met on her journey by crowds of mourners.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2023-10-25T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>378. </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-ancient-rome-agrippina-landing-with-the-ashes-of-germanicus-n00523" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00523</span></a>]<b> Ancient Rome; Agrippina landing with the Ashes of Germanicus. The Triumphal Bridge and Palace of the Cæsars restored</b>
Exh. 1839</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (523)</p>
<p>Canvas, 36 × 48 (91·5 × 122)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (84 ‘Rome’ 4'0" × 3'0"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1939.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1839 (66); Arts Council tour 1952 (16); exchange loan to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts 1954–7; Edinburgh 1968 (22); R.A. 1974–5 (516, repr.); Hague 1978–9 (xi, repr. in colour); Paris 1983–4 (64, repr.).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Ruskin 1857 (1903–12, xiii, p. 158); Thornbury 1862, i, pp. 331–2; ii, p. 332; 1877, pp. 455–6, 530; Hamerton 1879, pp. 278–80; Bell 1901, p. 136 no. 213; Armstrong 1902, pp. 150, 217; Davies 1946, p. 187; Finberg 1961, pp. 373–4, 502 no. 483; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, p. 56; Lindsay 1966<sup>2</sup>, pp. 49–50; Gage 1974, pp. 77, 87 no. 55; Herrmann 1975, p. 47, pl. 153; Vaughan 1979, pp. 471–2; Wilton 1979, pp. 214–16; Butlin 1981, p. 43.</p>
<p>Exhibited in 1839 with the following lines:</p>
<p><u>               </u> ‘The clear stream,
<br/>Aye,—the yellow Tiber glimmers to her beam,
<br/>Even while the sun is setting’.</p>
<p>Germanicus Julius Caesar (15B.C.-A.D. 19) was the nephew and adopted son of the Emperor Tiberius and, by his wife Agrippina, the father of the future Emperor Caligula and Nero's mother, the younger Agrippina. He died in Antioch, the cause being rumoured to be poison or the magical arts. Germanicus' widow brought his ashes home in an urn, but in fact landed at Brundisium (Brindisi), not Rome as given in Turner's probable source, Oliver Goldsmith's <i>Roman History</i>, 1786 (ii, p. 88). In his verses Turner is presumably alluding to this incident as a stage in the decline of Rome. The picture is a pair to <i>Modern Rome—Campo Vaccino</i> (No. 379); <i>c.f. Ancient Italy</i> and <i>Modern Italy</i> of the previous year (Nos. 375 and 374).</p>
<p>As the full title indicates, the picture is also an exercise in archaeological restoration in the manner of C.R. Cockerell and J.M. Gandy, as in the cases of Nos. 133, 337 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-caligulas-palace-and-bridge-n00512" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00512</span></a>] and 375. For possible sources in F. Bianchini's <i>Del Palazzo de'Cesari</i>, 1738, Constantino (Konstantin) Thon's <i>Il Palazzo de'Cesari sul Monte Palatino</i>, 1828, and elsewhere see John Gage in exh. cat., Paris 1983–4, pp. 132–3, where he also reports Dr Vivien Cameron's suggestion that Turner may also have been influenced by Gandy's proposals for the new Houses of Parliament (repr. exh. cat., <i>Joseph Michael Gandy, 1771–1843</i>, Architectural Association, 1982, no. D6).</p>
<p>The <i>Athenaeum</i> for 11 May 1839 dismissed the two pictures as being in Turner's ‘maddest manner’. <i>Blackwood's Magazine</i> for July–December described them as ‘both alike in the same washy-flashy splashes of reds, blues, and whites, that, in their distraction and confusion, represent nothing in heaven or earth, and least of all that which they profess to represent, the co-existent influence of sun and moon.’ But the <i>Spectator</i> for 11 May, introducing Turner as being ‘as gorgeous and mysterious as ever’, while regretting his extravagances found it ‘impossible not to admire the wondrous power of his art in representing an atmosphere of light. “<i>Ancient Rome</i>” ... is a blaze of orange-golden sunshine, reflected from piles of architecture that must be of marble to be so steeped in the hues of light.’ And the <i>Art Union</i>
for 15 May described it as ‘Another of Turner's gorgeous works;—a reckless example of colour, but admirable in conception, and brilliant in execution’, adding rather strangely in view of the present appearance of the picture, ‘The critics who protest against his using too much yellow, will this year have to complain of his dealing too much in red.’ It may be that some colour has been lost, but Ruskin's remark, reviewing the pictures hung at Marlborough House in 1856, that ‘there was once some wonderful light in 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/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> but it has been chilled by time’ seems over-pessimistic.</p>
<p>For a <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> ‘colour beginning’ of a bridge with much the same general effect and mood as the painting, though with none 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/c/classicism" title="Glossary definition for 'Classicism'"><span>classical</span></a> detail, see CCLXIII-351 (repr. in colour Wilkinson 1975, p. 113).</p>
<p>This is the earliest painting known to bear the third form of the Thomas Brown stamp on the back of its <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>, suggesting that this was the year in which this form of stamp came into use (see Butlin <i>loc. cit.</i>).</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
adults Agrippina, mourning Germanicus, circa 19 AD architecture boat - non-specific bridge bridges and viaducts cities, towns, villages (non-UK) classical classical countries and continents dock figure group groups historical: imagined views history Italy natural phenomena people periods and styles places reflection river Rome Rome Rome - non-specific society sunshine townscape townscapes / man-made features transport: water water: inland weather