Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
Belgium
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>
Field Waterloo
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
animals: mammals
architecture
army
astronomy
Belgium
birth to death
body
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
corpse
countries and continents
country house
death
diseases and conditions
field
fire
groups
heating and lighting
history
horse
landscape
man
military
moonlight
Napoleonic Wars, 1796-1815
natural phenomena
night
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residential
smoke
society
times of the day
torch
Waterloo, Battle, 18 Jun 1815
Waterloo, Chateau of Hougoumont
woman
wounded
<p>The dramatic lighting in this picture highlights the dead bodies piled below. JMW Turner shows the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo (1815), which ended more than a decade of conflict between Britain and France. He had visited the site in 1817, making numerous sketches. Turner emphasises war’s tragic consequences for all victims, regardless of their nationality or rank. Pictures of battles were expected to be patriotic, but Turner shows ‘friend, foe, in one red burial blent’. This quote from Lord Byron’s poem <span>Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage</span> was displayed alongside the painting when it was first exhibited.</p><p><em>Gallery label, May 2023</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
24 October 2001 – 11 July 2005
2005-07-11
24 October 2001
2001-10-24
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-10-24
Making British History
Collection based display
6 February 2003 – 4 January 2004
2004-01-04
6 February 2003 – 11 May 2003
2003-05-11
2003-02-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
8 June 2003 – 7 September 2003
2003-09-07
2003-06-08
Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, USA)
2003-02-06
Constable to Delacroix: British Art and the French Romantics 1820 - 1840
Exhibition
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
19 August 2009 – 19 July 2010
2010-07-19
19 August 2009 – 19 July 2010
2010-07-19
2009-08-19
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-19
War and Peace
Collection based display
30 July 2010 – 15 April 2012
2012-04-15
30 July 2010 – 15 April 2012
2012-04-15
2010-07-30
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-07-30
Romantics
Collection based display
28 October 2020 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
28 October 2020 – 12 September 2021
2021-09-12
2020-10-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
17 October 2021 – 6 February 2022
2022-02-06
2021-10-17
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, USA)
http://www.kimbellart.org
27 March 2022 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
2022-03-27
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
2020-10-28
Turner's Modern World
Exhibition
17 October 2021 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
17 October 2021 – 6 February 2022
2022-02-06
2021-10-17
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, USA)
http://www.kimbellart.org
27 March 2022 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
2022-03-27
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
2021-10-17
Turner's Modern World
Loan-out
26 September 2022
26 September 2022
2022-09-26
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2022-09-26
Gallery 10
Collection based display
The Field of Waterloo
support: 1473 × 2388 mm
frame: 1860 × 2773 × 180 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>The dramatic lighting in this picture highlights the dead bodies piled below. JMW Turner shows the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo (1815), which ended more than a decade of conflict between Britain and France. He had visited the site in 1817, making numerous sketches. Turner emphasises war’s tragic consequences for all victims, regardless of their nationality or rank. Pictures of battles were expected to be patriotic, but Turner shows ‘friend, foe, in one red burial blent’. This quote from Lord Byron’s poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage was displayed alongside the painting when it was first exhibited.</p>
</div>

Online caption
2023-11-29T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
<p><b>138. </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-field-of-waterloo-n00500" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00500</span></a>]<b> The Field of Waterloo</b> Exh. 1818
<br/>
<br/>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (500)
<br/>Canvas, 58 × 94 (147·5 × 239)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (60 ‘The Field of Waterloo’ 7'10" × 4' 10 1/2"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1910.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1818 (263; Paris 1983–4 (33, repr.)).</p>
<p><b>Engr.</b> By F. C. Lewis in mezzotint 1830 (repr. Wilton 1980, p. 156).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Thornbury 1862, i, pp. 300–01; 1877, p. 435; Hamerton 1879, pp. 168–9; Monkhouse 1879, p. 130; Bell 1901, p. 102 no. 141; Armstrong 1902, p. 236; MacColl 1920, p. 13; Whitley 1928, p. 285; Davies 1946, p. 187; Clare 1951, p. 64; Finberg 1961, pp. 249, 251, 478 no. 200; Lindsay 1966, pp. 154, 156; Gerald E. Finley, ‘Turner's Illustrations to <i>Napoleon</i>’, <i>Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes</i>
xxxvi 1973, pp. 391, 393; A. G. H. Bachrach, ‘Turner schildert Waterloo’, <i>Spiegel Historiael</i> xii 1977, pp. 585–97, repr. pp. 585 and, details, 586; Gage 1980, pp. 134, 149; Wilton 1980, pp. 77–8, 155–6; Bachrach 1981<sup>2</sup>, pp. 4–13, pls. 1 and, details, 3, 4 and 5.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Exhibited in 1818 with the following quotation from Byron's <i>Childe Harold</i> iii, 28:
<br/></p>
<p>‘Last noon behold them full of lusty life;
<br/>Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay;</p>
<p>The midnight brought the signal—sound of strife;
<br/>The morn the marshalling of arms—the day,
<br/>Battle's magnificently stern array!
<br/>The thunder clouds close o'er it, which when rent,
<br/>The earth is covered thick with other clay
<br/>Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,
<br/>Rider and horse—friend, foe, in one red burial blent!’</p>
<p></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/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> was the largest result, and probably the main cause, of Turner's first journey to the continent after the conclusion of the Napoleonic war. He left London on 1 August 1817 and was at the field of Waterloo by the 16th. Subsequently he went up the Rhine as far as Mainz and returned to Yorkshire via Holland. He seems to have spent only a single day on the battlefield. In 1816 the British Institution had offered a prize for the best painting to commemorate the battle, but pressure of work seems to have prevented Turner from leaving England until the following year.
<br/>
<br/>During this tour Turner used, and lost (see ‘Itinerary Rhine Tour’ sketchbook, CLIX, p. 101), a copy of Charles Campbell's <i>The Traveller's Complete Guide to Belgium and Holland</i>, first published in 1815 but of which the ‘improved’ edition of 1817 included a new chapter devoted to ‘A Walk over the Field of Battle at Waterloo’. This reprints appropriate verses by Scott, Southey and, significantly, those lines from Byron's <i>Childe Harold</i> quoted by Turner. Campbell also describes the rockets used to light the field and scare off looters.
<br/>
<br/>There are a number of sketches of the battlefield, including the Château of Hougoumont which is shown burning on the right, in the ‘Waterloo and Rhine’ sketchbook (CLX-17 <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/recto-verso" title="Glossary definition for 'Recto / Verso'"><span>verso</span></a> to 26; examples repr. Bachrach, 1981<sup>2</sup>, pp. 12–31), and of soldiers and details of their uniforms in the ‘Guards’ sketchbook (CLXIV-24a to 52a). A note in Turner's hand on CLX-24a reads ‘Hollow where the great Carnage took place of the [French] Cuirassiers by the [British] Guards’, and the bodies of the Cuirassiers with their womenfolk searching among them for news or signs of life fill the foreground.
<br/>
<br/>A variant of 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/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> was 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>water-colour</span></a> (W.1229, repr. Bachrach <i>op. cit.</i>, pl. 6) for the title-page of vol. xiv of <i>The Works of Lord Byron</i>, <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Engraving'"><span>engraved</span></a> by E. Finden in 1833. A very similar water-colour (W.1097) was engraved in vol. v of <i>Scott's Prose Works</i>
(‘Paul's Letters’) by W. Miller in 1834. A different wide-spreading view with a flash of lightning was engraved after Turner's watercolour (W.1116, repr.) by W. Miller for vol. xvi of <i>Scott's Prose Works</i> (‘Life of Napoleon’) in 1835. Other sketches were used for the finished watercolour of <i>c.</i> 1816 (W.494, repr., and in Bachrach <i>op. cit.</i>, pl. 2; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, from the Fawkes collection); this shows the area around La Haye.
<br/>
<br/>Bachrach sees an influence in general terms of Rembrandt's <i>Night Watch</i> (repr. 1981<sup>2</sup>, pl. 8). Turner had seen the painting in Amsterdam on 7 September 1815 (see CLIX, pp. 10 and 100).
<br/>
<br/>Newspaper criticism rather surprisingly ranged from scorn to outright praise. The <i>Annals of the Fine Arts</i> wrote, ‘Before we referred to the catalogue we really thought this was the representation of a drunken hubbub on an illumination night, and the host as far gone as his scuffling and scrambling guests, was, with his dame and kitchen wenches looking with torches for a lodger, and wondering what was the matter’. The <i>Literary Chronicle</i> for 22 June referred to the picture as an ‘abortive attempt’. On the other hand, the <i>Sun</i> for 15 May 1818 described the picture as ‘a terrific representation of the effects of war’. The <i>Repository of Art</i> for 1 June described it as ‘more an <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/allegory" title="Glossary definition for 'Allegory'"><span>allegorical</span></a> representation of “battle's magnificently stern array” than any actual delineation of a particular battle ... It possesses a strong claim to attention from the arrangement of powerful masses of colouring, descriptive of the smoky elements of a wide-spreading conflagration ... There is a good deal of grandeur in the effect of this picture as a whole, and the executive parts are handled with care and attention’. The radical publication <i>The Examiner</i> for 24 May 1818 also praised the work, dwelling on the artist's magical illustration of ‘the fiery explosions and carnage after the battle when the wives and brothers and sons of the slain come, with anxious eyes and agonised hearts, to look at Ambition's charnel-house after the slaughtered victims of legitimate selfishness and wickedness’.
<br/>
<br/>The picture was cleaned and restored in 1983, following at least two earlier restorations.</p>
<p>
<br/><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 animals: mammals architecture army astronomy Belgium birth to death body cities, towns, villages (non-UK) corpse countries and continents country house death diseases and conditions field fire groups heating and lighting history horse landscape man military moonlight Napoleonic Wars, 1796-1815 natural phenomena night objects people places residential smoke society times of the day torch Waterloo, Battle, 18 Jun 1815 Waterloo, Chateau of Hougoumont woman wounded