Oil paint on canvas
Isle of Wight
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>
Boccaccio Relating Tale BirdCage
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
architecture
Boccaccio, Giovanni
castle
East Cowes, East Cowes Castle
England
England, South East
England, Southern
features
forest
group
groups
history
individuals: male
Isle of Wight
landscape
leisure and pastimes
literary
man
military
music and entertainment
named individuals
people
period: Middle Ages
places
poet
politics and society
portraits
recital
tower
UK cities, towns and villages
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<p>Turner exhibited this picture at the Royal Academy in 1828. Despite its title, it is not an illustration to The Decameron, a collection of tales by the Italian poet, Boccaccio. Instead, Turner uses the idea of Boccaccio telling one of his tales as a pretext for painting a group of leisured figures in the style of the eighteenth-century French painter, Antoine Watteau. Turner is also referring to the work of Thomas Stothard, who had illustrated the Decameron in 1825, and who was well known for his clever pastiches of Watteau.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
15 July 2002 – 21 May 2007
2007-05-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-07-15
Exhibiting Turner
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)
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/
2010-02-22
Turner and the Masters
Loan-out
Boccaccio Relating the Tale of the Bird-Cage
support: 1219 × 899 mm
frame: 1500 × 1180 × 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
<p>
Turner exhibited this picture at the Royal Academy in 1828. Despite its title, it is not an illustration to The Decameron, a collection of tales by the Italian poet, Boccaccio. Instead, Turner uses the idea of Boccaccio telling one of his tales as a pretext for <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> a group of leisured figures in the style of the eighteenth-century French painter, Antoine Watteau. Turner is also referring to the work of Thomas Stothard, who had illustrated the Decameron in 1825, and who was well known for his clever pastiches of Watteau.</p>
Display caption
2004-09-08T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>244. </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-boccaccio-relating-the-tale-of-the-bird-cage-n00507" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00507</span></a>]<b> Boccaccio relating the Tale of the Birdcage</b> Exh. 1828</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (507)</p>
<p>Canvas, 48 × 35 5/8 (122 × 90·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (73, ‘The Bird Cage’ 4'0" × 3'0"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1905.</p>
<p><b>Exh. R.A.</b> 1828 (262); Venice and Rome 1948 (31, repr.); Hamburg, Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen 1949–50 (97); Whitechapel 1953 (81); R.A. 1974–5 (322).</p>
<p><b>Engr.</b> By J.P. Quilley in mezzotint 1830.</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Ruskin 1857 (1903–12, xiii, pp. 135–6); Leslie 1860, i,p. 130; Thornbury 1862, i, p. 306; ii, p. 35; 1877, pp. 222, 439; Hamerton 1879, pp. 134, 218; Bell 1901, p. 110 no. 159; Armstrong 1902, p. 219; MacColl 1920, p. 14; Whitley 1930, pp. 146–7; Davies 1946, p. 187; Finberg 1961, pp. 306–7, 487 no. 319; Herrmann 1963, p. 24; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, p. 42; Lindsay 1966, p. 96; Gage 1969, p. 92; Reynolds 1969, p. 124, pl. 108; Reynolds 1969<sup>2</sup>, p. 74, pl. 10; Herrmann 1975, p. 33, pl. 120; Wilton 1979, p. 208; Ziff 1980, p. 169.</p>
<p>Turner chose his title for general effect rather than to give a specific reference, there being no story about a birdcage in the <i>Decameron,</i> though Jerrold Ziff suggests that there may be a confused recollection of Samuel Rogers's <i>Italy</i> in which Boccaccio's name occurs on the same page as a reference to cages and the capture of thrushes. According to Ziff, the use of East Cowes Castle in the background may have resulted from an equally confused memory of a reference in J. Hassell's <i>Tour of the Isle of Wight,</i> 1790, to Shanklin (on the other side of the Island) as being noted for its singing birds, none of which were ever caged by the freedom-loving inhabitants. If these influences are correct they illustrate the amazingly unsystematic workings of Turner's mind.</p>
<p>Turner was inspired by Thomas Stothard's illustrations to an edition of the <i>Decameron</i> of 1825; the plate of ‘Giornata Seconda’ is particularly close with its Watteauesque figures sitting on the grass amidst trees (repr. A.C. Coxhead, <i>Thomas Stothard R.A.</i> 1906, facing p. 140). According to C.R. Leslie, Turner painted the picture ‘in avowed imitation’ of Stothard and told him, while actually working on it during one of the Varnishing Days prior to the opening of the 1828 R.A. Exhibition, that ‘If I thought he liked my pictures half as well as I like his, I should be satisfied. He is the Giotto [<i>sic:</i> probably a mishearing of ‘Watteau’] of England’. There is a further link with Watteau in that Turner here illustrates the text from Du Fresnoy that he was later to give to his <i>Watteau <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></i> (No. 340), using white to bring a distant object near. In this case the distant object is based on East Cowes Castle, the subject of a number of sketches on blue <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/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a> done during Turner's stay there in 1827 (CCXXVII (a), e.g. no. 34, repr. Wilkinson 1975, p. 38).</p>
<p>The critic of the <i>Literary Gazette</i> for 17 May 1828 recognised Turner's reference to his fellow artists, ancient and modern; after mentioning Turner's other exhibits that year he goes on ‘—On land, as well as on water, Mr. Turner is determined not merely to shine, but to blaze and dazzle. Watteau and Stothard, be quiet! Here is much more than you could match.’ But he goes on to attack the picture as a ‘sketch ... With respect of the details in this gaudy experiment the less they are inspected the better for the reputation of the artist.’ The <i>Athenaeum</i> for 21 May attacked it as ‘the <i>ne plus ultra</i> of yellow, and gaudiness, and of corrupt art.’ <i>The Times</i> for 6 May, however, after describing another of Turner's exhibits as ‘extremely beautiful and powerful’, said of <i>Boccaccio</i> ‘that it displays equal genius and the same fault ... it is like nothing in nature.’</p>
<p>The paint was transferred to a new <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> after the Thames flood of 1928.</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 architecture Boccaccio, Giovanni castle East Cowes, East Cowes Castle England England, South East England, Southern features forest group groups history individuals: male Isle of Wight landscape leisure and pastimes literary man military music and entertainment named individuals people period: Middle Ages places poet politics and society portraits recital tower UK cities, towns and villages UK counties UK countries and regions work and occupations