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>
Aeneas and Sibyl Lake Avernus
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
Aeneas
architecture
bank
building
classical
classical
classical myths: gods and heroes
countries and continents
hill
Italy
lake
Lake Avernus
Lake Avernus
landscape
literature and fiction
man
mythical, religious, fictional
natural features (non-UK)
people
periods and styles
places
religion and belief
rocky
ruins
Sibyl / Sibylla
tree
Virgil, ‘Aeneid’
water: inland
woman
<p>This is probably Turner’s first attempt at an oil painting of a mythological subject. The story is from the <span>Aeneid</span>, written by the Roman poet Virgil. The Trojan military leader Aeneas wants to visit the Underworld to speak to the ghost of his father. He meets the Cumaean Sibyl (a priestess at Cumae, near Naples, Italy). She agrees to guide him through the kingdom of the dead. The setting is Lake Avernus, an Italian volcanic crater which was believed to be the entrance to the Underworld.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2023</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
8 July 2002 – 21 May 2007
2007-05-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-07-08
Turner and Mythology
Collection based display
28 May 2007 – 27 July 2009
2009-07-27
28 May 2007
2007-05-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-05-28
A Turner Gallery
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)
21 June 2010 – 19 September 2010
2010-09-19
2010-06-21
Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid, Spain)
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/
22 February 2010 – 23 May 2010
2010-05-23
2010-02-22
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (Paris, France)
21 June 2010 – 19 September 2010
2010-09-19
2010-06-21
Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid, Spain)
2010-02-22
Turner and the Masters
Loan-out
14 April 2012 – 9 February 2020
2020-02-09
14 April 2012 – 9 February 2020
2020-02-09
2012-04-14
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-04-14
Clore Introduction: Ambition and Legacy
Collection based display
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 104
Collection based display
13 March 2023
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2023-03-13
Gallery 101
Collection based display
Aeneas and the Sibyl, Lake Avernus
support: 765 × 984 mm
frame: 1045 × 1260 × 115 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 is probably Turner’s first attempt at an oil painting of a mythological subject. The story is from the <i>Aeneid</i>, written by the Roman poet Virgil. The Trojan military leader Aeneas wants to visit the Underworld to speak to the ghost of his father. He meets the Cumaean Sibyl (a priestess at Cumae, near Naples, Italy). She agrees to guide him through the kingdom of the dead. The setting is Lake Avernus, an Italian volcanic crater which was believed to be the entrance to the Underworld.</p>
</div>

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2023-10-25T00:00:00
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<p><b>34.</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-aeneas-and-the-sibyl-lake-avernus-n00463" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00463</span></a>]<b> Æneas and the Sibyl, Lake Avernus</b> <i>c.</i>
1798
<br/>
<br/>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (463)
<br/>Canvas, 30 1/8 × 38 3/4 (76·5 × 98·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (88, ‘Æneas and the Sibyl’ 4'0" × 3'0"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1929.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> Tate Gallery 1931 (9); Birmingham (172) and Tate Gallery (165) 1948–9; R.A. 1974–5 (46).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Thornbury 1862, i, p. 263; 1877, p. 418; Armstrong 1902, p. 218; MacColl 1920, p. 3; Davies 1946, p. 187; Clare 1951, p. 27, pl. 26; Herrmann 1963, p. 10; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, pp. 14, 18, pl. 12; Lindsay 1966, p. 72; Kenneth Woodbridge, ‘The Sacred Garden Painters and the Lake-garden of Stourhead’, <i>Apollo</i> lXXXViii 1968, pp. 213–14, repr. pl. 12; Reynolds 1969, p. 40, pl. 26; Woodbridge 1970, pp. 89, 183–4; Gage 1974, pp. 72–5, pl. 12; Herrmann 1975, pp. 12, 226, pl. 20; Wilton 1979, pp. 53–4, 60, 135, pl. 41; Mattheson 1980, pp. 392–3.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Based on 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> of Lake Avernus made by Sir Richard Colt Hoare on 4 February 1786 (repr. Woodbridge 1968, pl. 11, and 1970, pl. 29b, and Gage 1974, pl. 10). A drawing by Turner, presumably made during a visit to Stourhead in the later 1790s (see Woodbridge 1970, p. 178; repr. Gage 1974, pl. 11), is in the Turner Bequest (LI-N): this introduces a path and Antique masonry into the foreground and was fairly closely followed, save for the introduction of the figures, in 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/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a>, which can be dated <i>c.</i> 1798.
<br/>
<br/>For a later version painted for Colt Hoare in 1815, see No. 226. That this replaced the earlier version, with which Colt Hoare could have become dissatisfied, is a possibility, but there is no evidence that he ever owned any other version than that of 1815. John Gage has suggested (1974, pp. 38–40) that Colt Hoare could have suggested the subject in the 1790s partly to replace, as it were, a Wilson in his collection which had turned out to show not Lake Avernus but Lake Nemi with Diana and Callisto.
<br/>
<br/>The subject, taken from the sixth book of Virgil's <i>Æneid</i>, is Æneas being told by the Cumaean Sibyl that he can only enter the Underworld, where he seeks the shade of his father, with a golden bough from a sacred tree as an offering to Proserpine. The subject of Apollo and the Sybil appears in Thomas Gray's list of imaginary paintings by artists of the past (see under No. 126, [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-snow-storm-hannibal-and-his-army-crossing-the-alps-n00490" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00490</span></a>]). The subject is related to that of <i>The Golden Bough</i>, exhibited at the R.A. in 1834 (see 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>]), in which Lake Avernus and the distant <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> reappear.
<br/>
<br/>In both versions of <i>Æneas and the Sibyl</i> Turner enlarged Colt Hoare's foreground to serve as a stage for the figures of the Cumaean Sibyl, Æneas and his followers, also adding the monumental fragments of Antique masonry. Lake Avernus and the ruined temple on its edge are more prominent, but he diminished the effect of the trees on the strip of land dividing that lake from the Lucrine Lake beyond. The sharp facets of the Miseneum in Colt Hoare's drawing are veiled by the effect of distance. In the earlier version, though not in the other, he balanced the framing trees on the right with others on the left.</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 Aeneas architecture bank building classical classical classical myths: gods and heroes countries and continents hill Italy lake Lake Avernus Lake Avernus landscape literature and fiction man mythical, religious, fictional natural features (non-UK) people periods and styles places religion and belief rocky ruins Sibyl / Sibylla tree Virgil, ‘Aeneid’ water: inland woman