From Spenser's Fairy Queen (Liber Studiorum, part VII, plate 36)

From Spenser's Fairy Queen (Liber Studiorum, part VII, plate 36)

Joseph Mallord William Turner

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Turner distilled his ideas about landscape In "Liber Studiorum" (Latin for Book of Studies), a series of seventy prints plus a frontispiece published between 1807 and 1819. To establish the compositions, he made brown watercolor drawings, then etched outlines onto copper plates. Professional engravers usually developed the tone under Turner's direction, and Hodgetts here added mezzotint to detail a subject inspired by Spenser's epic poem "The Faerie Queene" (1590-96). An armored figure, whose shield identifies him as the Redcrosse Knight, sits dejecteded on a rocky mountainside ledge near blasted trees. The image likely relates to lines in Book I where the knight succumbs briefly to the influence of Despayre (Despair) after being abandoned by a companion. The letter "H" in the upper margin places the work within Turner's category of Historical landscape, and the dark moody vista echoes Salvator Rosa.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

From Spenser's Fairy Queen (Liber Studiorum, part VII, plate 36)From Spenser's Fairy Queen (Liber Studiorum, part VII, plate 36)From Spenser's Fairy Queen (Liber Studiorum, part VII, plate 36)From Spenser's Fairy Queen (Liber Studiorum, part VII, plate 36)From Spenser's Fairy Queen (Liber Studiorum, part VII, plate 36)

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.