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>
Vision Jacobs Ladder 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
angel
aura
Bible: Old Testament
branch
cherub
diseases and conditions
dreaming
family
family
Genesis, chapter 28
Jacob
Jacob’s ladder
landscape
mysticism
people
religion and belief
rocky
society
universal religious imagery
vision
painting oil paint canvas
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 Vision of Jacob’s Ladder (?)
support: 1232 × 1880 mm
frame: 1522 × 2172 × 151 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><b>435. </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-vision-of-jacobs-ladder-n05507" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05507</span></a>]<b> The Vision of Jacob's Ladder</b> <i>c.</i> 1830?</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (5507)</p>
<p>Canvas, 48 1/2 × 74 (123 × 188)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (256, ‘1 (Scriptural subject [)]’ 6'2 1/2" × 4'0"; identified 1946 by chalk number on back); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1951.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1974–5 (484).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Davies 1946, pp. 162, 190; Ziff 1980, p. 171; Shanes 1981, p. 46.</p>
<p>Listed in the Schedule of the Turner Bequest, no. 266, merely as ‘Scriptural Subject 6'2 1/2" × 4'0"’, but almost certainly the Vision of Jacob's Ladder, <i>Genesis</i> xxviii, 10–12, though Jacob is accompanied by his family and is being addressed by an angel rather than by the Lord God. Martin Davies describes this as a very early work but in fact it seems to have been worked on over a considerable period. The basic forms, and particularly the craggy hill in the centre, are close to such <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> as <i>The Goddess of Discord choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides</i> and <i>Fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen</i>, both exhibited in 1806 (Nos. 57 [<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-goddess-of-discord-choosing-the-apple-of-contention-in-the-garden-of-the-n00477" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00477</span></a>] and 61) but the impressionistic technique and the way in which the whole picture is illuminated by the apparition suggest a much later date, probably close to the <i>Vision of Medea</i> (No. 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>]) which also reflects a return to earlier ideas and Venetian painting. The general effect owes much to Titian but the flicked-in forms of the angels are still closer to Tintoretto.</p>
<p>John Gage has kindly drawn the compiler's attention to a passage in the ‘Catalogue of the Pictures Bequeathed to ... Dulwich’ in the <i>Annals of the Fine Arts</i>, i, 1817, pp. 387 ff., referring to the picture of <i>Jacob's Dream</i> then attributed to Rembrandt: ‘Instead of a material ladder of substantial steps, on which well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, with wings on their shoulders, have been walking up and down like waiters ... we behold a mysterious, solemn twilight, on which from a bright refulgence in the heavens, a stream of light beams an immensity from earth to heaven ...’. This description could have pointed the way to Turner's own magical treatment of the subject. Washington Allston had painted a picture of the same subject for Lord Egremont in 1817, exhibiting it at 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> in 1819 and again at the British Institution in 1825.</p>
<p>Since the first edition of this catalogue Jerrold Ziff has suggested that the first stage of this painting was even earlier than here suggested, <i>c.</i>
1800–2 and that its intended subject may have been the first Plague of Egypt, the subject of 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/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> inscribed ‘Water Turned to Blood’ in the ‘Calais Pier’ sketchbook (LXXXI-42 and 43); the size is close to that of <i>The Fifth Plague of Egypt</i>, exhibited in 1800 (No. 13). Shanes has suggested rather that the underlying picture is the lost <i>Army of the Medes destroyed in the Desart by a Whirlwind</i>, exhibited in 1801 (No. 15).</p>
<p>This painting not only shared the general neglect of most of the works kept in Turner's studio but was even turned to the wall and used as an impromptu palette. The dabs of paint were only removed when the picture was restored at the Tate Gallery in the 1970s.</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
angel aura Bible: Old Testament branch cherub diseases and conditions dreaming family family Genesis, chapter 28 Jacob Jacob’s ladder landscape mysticism people religion and belief rocky society universal religious imagery vision