Decade 1840-1849
Except otherwise stated, all results below include the premium.
See also : French painting < 1860 Stamps UK II British Royals Turner Watercolor by Turner Illustrators Venice
See also : French painting < 1860 Stamps UK II British Royals Turner Watercolor by Turner Illustrators Venice
TURNER
Intro
J.M.W. Turner's engagement with Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, c. 1488–1576) represents one of the most profound and enduring influences on his career, far surpassing the more specific, tribute-like reference to Giovanni Bellini in the 1841 painting Depositing of John Bellini's Three Pictures in La Chiesa Redentore, Venice. While Bellini embodied an earlier Venetian foundation of luminous, harmonious atmosphere and oil technique, Titian—as the supreme master of Venetian colorito (color as the primary expressive tool)—provided Turner with a direct model for prioritizing vibrant, atmospheric color, loose brushwork, and the emotional power of light over precise line or form.
Early Encounters and Direct Study
Turner first deeply encountered Titian's works during his 1802 visit to the Louvre in Paris (enabled by the brief Peace of Amiens), where Napoleon's looted treasures included major Venetian paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto. Turner filled sketchbooks with copies and detailed notes on Titian's compositions, color harmonies, and effects—such as sketches after Sacred and Profane Love (Galleria Borghese, which Turner saw later in Rome) and commentaries on pieces like Christ Crowned with Thorns and the Entombment. He admired Titian's "colour and pathos of effect," attempting to assimilate these lessons into his own evolving style. This period marked a shift: Turner began prioritizing color's emotional and atmospheric potential, moving away from stricter topographical accuracy toward more poetic, expressive landscapes.
Key Aspects of Titian's Influence on Turner
Turner viewed himself as heir to the greats, often pairing his works with Old Masters (e.g., stipulating his paintings hang near Claude Lorrain's). Titian represented the Venetian color legacy Turner claimed and extended. Critics and historians (including John Ruskin, Turner's champion) highlighted this lineage: Turner's luminous, "breathing" colors and mastery of light echo Titian's revolutionary approach.
In essence, Titian gave Turner the tools to transcend tradition—turning Venetian color into a vehicle for Romantic sublimity, light as emotion, and painting as pure sensation—while Bellini symbolized the poetic origins of that tradition. Together, they underscore Turner's deep dialogue with Venice's artistic past.
Early Encounters and Direct Study
Turner first deeply encountered Titian's works during his 1802 visit to the Louvre in Paris (enabled by the brief Peace of Amiens), where Napoleon's looted treasures included major Venetian paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto. Turner filled sketchbooks with copies and detailed notes on Titian's compositions, color harmonies, and effects—such as sketches after Sacred and Profane Love (Galleria Borghese, which Turner saw later in Rome) and commentaries on pieces like Christ Crowned with Thorns and the Entombment. He admired Titian's "colour and pathos of effect," attempting to assimilate these lessons into his own evolving style. This period marked a shift: Turner began prioritizing color's emotional and atmospheric potential, moving away from stricter topographical accuracy toward more poetic, expressive landscapes.
Key Aspects of Titian's Influence on Turner
- Venetian Colorism and Light: Titian pioneered the use of rich, layered colors to build form and mood—warm reds, glowing oranges, deep blues, and golden tones applied loosely to create vitality and unity. Turner absorbed this "Venetian style" (contrasting with Florentine emphasis on disegno or line), pushing it further into abstraction. In his mature and late works, Turner dissolved outlines in shimmering light and mist, much as Titian used thin, dragged paint layers and visible canvas texture for luminous effects. Art historians note that Titian's hazy, mist-filled backgrounds (e.g., in The Rape of Europa) prefigure Turner's atmospheric seascapes and Venetian views by centuries.
- Atmospheric and Emotional Depth: Both artists treated landscape not as mere backdrop but as integral to narrative and feeling. Titian's innovative techniques—loose brushwork, smudging, and sparing application—created dynamic, breathing surfaces. Turner echoed this in his dissolution of forms into color and light, evoking sublime emotion (storms, sunsets, fog). Turner's Venetian paintings, inspired by the city's light on water, owe much to the Venetian tradition Titian epitomized.
- Structural and Thematic Borrowings: Specific compositions show direct impact. For example, Turner's Vision of Medea draws from the structure of Titian's St. Peter Martyr (which Turner copied in 1802). Turner also studied Titian's figure groupings, pathos, and integration of human drama with environment.
- Bellini (as in the 1841 Redentore painting) offered a more archaic, serene root: early oil mastery, soft modeling, glowing light, and poetic figure-landscape harmony. Turner's homage was explicit and narrative—a invented ceremonial tribute celebrating Venetian artistic heritage.
- Titian, by contrast, was a living, career-long model for innovation. Turner saw Titian as the pinnacle of color's supremacy, influencing his radical late style (e.g., near-abstract works like Rain, Steam and Speed or late Venetian sunsets). Where Bellini provided historical reverence, Titian fueled Turner's push toward modernism—loose handling, color dominance, and atmospheric abstraction that inspired Impressionists and beyond.
Turner viewed himself as heir to the greats, often pairing his works with Old Masters (e.g., stipulating his paintings hang near Claude Lorrain's). Titian represented the Venetian color legacy Turner claimed and extended. Critics and historians (including John Ruskin, Turner's champion) highlighted this lineage: Turner's luminous, "breathing" colors and mastery of light echo Titian's revolutionary approach.
In essence, Titian gave Turner the tools to transcend tradition—turning Venetian color into a vehicle for Romantic sublimity, light as emotion, and painting as pure sensation—while Bellini symbolized the poetic origins of that tradition. Together, they underscore Turner's deep dialogue with Venice's artistic past.
1
1841 Giudecca (Venice)
2006 SOLD for $ 36M by Christie's
Venice had a hard time taming Turner. His first tour of Italy, in 1819, included only a short visit to Venice, which he completely avoided in 1828. Inspired by poets, he conceived his views of Italy and Greece by unleashing his own imagination from sketches brought back by his friends.
Turner had an unlimited confidence in the correctness of his vision. Annoyed by the posthumous influence of Bonington, he exhibited new views of Venice during the summer of 1833 at the Royal Academy, to serve as models of the expression of atmosphere and poetry in painting, without having seen again the City of the Doges. He made his second stay there at the end of the same year and finally considered including Venice in his regular work.
An identical sequence of events took place in 1840, with two views of Venice exhibited at the Royal Academy before his departure for his third and final visit, which lasted two weeks only. This time the ethereal charm of Venice has operated.
In the following years, Turner was making a distinction between the watercolor sketches and the views in larger format which he considered as his finished works, the only ones worthy of being exhibited and sold. His finished views of Switzerland are large watercolors and his finished views of Venice are oils on canvas.
Painted in his studio after his come back, the panoramic views of Venice deserved a larger format than the watercolors. In order not to lose anything in the luminosity and the freshness of the colors, he paints Venice in oil with the same pigments as his watercolors. The pre-impressionist atmosphere also suggests that he had transferred the wet in wet technique of his watercolors onto his canvases, before adding the more realistic narrative drawing of the gondolas.
On April 6, 2006, Christie's sold as lot 97 for $ 36M a view of the Giudecca with La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio. This oil on canvas 61 x 92 cm was prepared by Turner for the 1841 exhibition of the Royal Academy. As often with this artist, the perfection of the composition and the color balance prevail over the topographic reality.
A 24 x 30 cm watercolor showing the Dogana under the new moon was sold for £ 960K by Christie's on July 10, 2014, lot 209. The evanescent clarity may be compared with the atmosphere of the oil on canvas discussed above.
Grok thought :
Quote
xpc @xpuigc Mar 9, 2018
Giudecca, la Donna della Salute and San Georgio 1841 William Turner 61x91.5 cm. oil canvas
J.M.W. Turner's Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio (exhibited 1841, oil on canvas, approx. 61 × 92 cm) is a quintessential late Venetian view from his 1840 trip to the city. It depicts a broad, luminous panorama across the Giudecca Canal toward the iconic domes of Santa Maria della Salute (often called "La Donna della Salute") and the church of San Giorgio Maggiore, with gondolas, distant architecture, and a vast, radiant sky suffused in golden light, haze, and shimmering reflections. This painting sold for $35,856,000 at Christie's New York on April 6, 2006, as lot 97 in the Important Old Master Paintings sale—setting a then-record for any British painting at auction (surpassed later).
The work exemplifies Turner's mature Venetian style: atmospheric dissolution of form, priority of light and color over precise topography, and a dream-like evocation of Venice as a place of fleeting beauty and transience. Human elements (gondolas, figures) are small and incidental, subordinate to the overwhelming interplay of water, sky, and glowing mist.
Specific Influence of Titian on This Painting
While Titian's influence on Turner is profound and career-long—rooted in Turner's early Louvre studies (1802) of Titian's color harmonies, loose handling, luminous effects, and integration of figures with environment--direct, specific borrowings in the Giudecca are more atmospheric and conceptual than compositional or iconographic. No single Titian painting is overtly quoted here (unlike, say, structural echoes in other Turners like Vision of Medea drawing from Titian's St. Peter Martyr).
Key aspects of Titian's influence visible or inferred in this work include:
This painting, more than many, embodies that inheritance: a shimmering tribute to Venice's light, filtered through centuries of Venetian mastery, with Titian as the key Renaissance bridge to Turner's modern sensibility.
Imagine Titian's glowing, layered skies in works like Bacchus and Ariadne alongside Turner's radiant haze in Giudecca—the color vitality and atmospheric fusion are strikingly parallel, though Turner's is more dissolved and ethereal.
Turner had an unlimited confidence in the correctness of his vision. Annoyed by the posthumous influence of Bonington, he exhibited new views of Venice during the summer of 1833 at the Royal Academy, to serve as models of the expression of atmosphere and poetry in painting, without having seen again the City of the Doges. He made his second stay there at the end of the same year and finally considered including Venice in his regular work.
An identical sequence of events took place in 1840, with two views of Venice exhibited at the Royal Academy before his departure for his third and final visit, which lasted two weeks only. This time the ethereal charm of Venice has operated.
In the following years, Turner was making a distinction between the watercolor sketches and the views in larger format which he considered as his finished works, the only ones worthy of being exhibited and sold. His finished views of Switzerland are large watercolors and his finished views of Venice are oils on canvas.
Painted in his studio after his come back, the panoramic views of Venice deserved a larger format than the watercolors. In order not to lose anything in the luminosity and the freshness of the colors, he paints Venice in oil with the same pigments as his watercolors. The pre-impressionist atmosphere also suggests that he had transferred the wet in wet technique of his watercolors onto his canvases, before adding the more realistic narrative drawing of the gondolas.
On April 6, 2006, Christie's sold as lot 97 for $ 36M a view of the Giudecca with La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio. This oil on canvas 61 x 92 cm was prepared by Turner for the 1841 exhibition of the Royal Academy. As often with this artist, the perfection of the composition and the color balance prevail over the topographic reality.
A 24 x 30 cm watercolor showing the Dogana under the new moon was sold for £ 960K by Christie's on July 10, 2014, lot 209. The evanescent clarity may be compared with the atmosphere of the oil on canvas discussed above.
Grok thought :
Quote
xpc @xpuigc Mar 9, 2018
Giudecca, la Donna della Salute and San Georgio 1841 William Turner 61x91.5 cm. oil canvas
- This 2018 post by art enthusiast @xpuigc shares J.M.W. Turner's 1841 oil painting "Giudecca, la Donna della Salute and San Georgio," depicting a luminous Venetian canal view with gondolas and iconic landmarks like Santa Maria della Salute.
- The artwork exemplifies Turner's innovative use of light and color to evoke atmospheric haze, a technique that influenced later Impressionists, as evidenced by its loose brushwork and ethereal sky over the Giudecca canal.
- Measuring 61x91.5 cm, the canvas was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1841 and is now in a private collection, highlighting Turner's prolific Venetian series from his multiple trips to the city.
J.M.W. Turner's Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio (exhibited 1841, oil on canvas, approx. 61 × 92 cm) is a quintessential late Venetian view from his 1840 trip to the city. It depicts a broad, luminous panorama across the Giudecca Canal toward the iconic domes of Santa Maria della Salute (often called "La Donna della Salute") and the church of San Giorgio Maggiore, with gondolas, distant architecture, and a vast, radiant sky suffused in golden light, haze, and shimmering reflections. This painting sold for $35,856,000 at Christie's New York on April 6, 2006, as lot 97 in the Important Old Master Paintings sale—setting a then-record for any British painting at auction (surpassed later).
The work exemplifies Turner's mature Venetian style: atmospheric dissolution of form, priority of light and color over precise topography, and a dream-like evocation of Venice as a place of fleeting beauty and transience. Human elements (gondolas, figures) are small and incidental, subordinate to the overwhelming interplay of water, sky, and glowing mist.
Specific Influence of Titian on This Painting
While Titian's influence on Turner is profound and career-long—rooted in Turner's early Louvre studies (1802) of Titian's color harmonies, loose handling, luminous effects, and integration of figures with environment--direct, specific borrowings in the Giudecca are more atmospheric and conceptual than compositional or iconographic. No single Titian painting is overtly quoted here (unlike, say, structural echoes in other Turners like Vision of Medea drawing from Titian's St. Peter Martyr).
Key aspects of Titian's influence visible or inferred in this work include:
- Luminous Color and Atmospheric Unity: Titian mastered layered, vibrant hues (golds, reds, blues) applied with glazing and loose brushwork to create glowing, unified surfaces where light permeates everything. Turner's Giudecca pushes this further: the entire canvas breathes with diffused golden-pink light, reflections on water, and hazy horizons that melt architecture into sky—echoing Titian's late works (e.g., The Flaying of Marsyas or Pietà) where forms dissolve in radiant, emotional color. Art historians note Turner's assimilation of Titian's "colour and pathos of effect" to evoke mood over detail, making Venice's light the true subject.
- Venetian Colorito Tradition: As heir to the Venetian school (Titian as its pinnacle), Turner prioritizes colorito (color as form-builder) over line. In Giudecca, color dominates: warm tones unify the scene, creating harmony and sublimity. This stems from Turner's admiration for Titian's ability to use color for emotional depth and spatial illusion, especially in landscapes with water/sky integration—qualities Titian pioneered in Venetian painting.
- Landscape as Emotional Carrier: Titian elevated landscape from backdrop to integral, poetic element (e.g., misty distances in mythological scenes). Turner extends this in Giudecca: the canal and sky convey melancholy beauty and impermanence, akin to how Titian's glowing atmospheres heighten drama or serenity. Turner's 1840 Venice visit (his last) rekindled interest in Venetian masters like Titian, influencing the series of luminous views exhibited in 1841 (including this one and the Bellini homage).
- No Topographical Precision: Unlike Canaletto's sharp vedute (which Turner also engaged with), Turner's hazy, idealized rendering aligns more with Titian's poetic license—prioritizing sensation over accuracy, a trait shared with later Venetians but rooted in Titian's innovations.
This painting, more than many, embodies that inheritance: a shimmering tribute to Venice's light, filtered through centuries of Venetian mastery, with Titian as the key Renaissance bridge to Turner's modern sensibility.
Imagine Titian's glowing, layered skies in works like Bacchus and Ariadne alongside Turner's radiant haze in Giudecca—the color vitality and atmospheric fusion are strikingly parallel, though Turner's is more dissolved and ethereal.
Giudecca, la Donna della Salute and San Georgio
— xpc (@xpuigc) March 9, 2018
1841
William Turner
61x91.5 cm.⁰oil canvas pic.twitter.com/O5anE6Mna6
2
1841 Bellini's Three Pictures (Venice)
2022 SOLD for $ 33.6M by Christie's
A painter of wonderful landscape views, Turner nevertheless applied fancy to his finished oil on canvas, relying throughout his career on his own pencil sketches.
A view of Venice painted in 1841 in Turner's pre-impressionist brush work of the period is a tribute to his earliest great predecessor in the city, Giovanni Bellini. Titled Depositing of John Bellini's Three Pictures in La Chiesa Redentore, it depicts a flowing procession forwarding three pictures in the leading gondola, in the follow of Canaletto's successful theme of festivities.
Although it was exhibited in the same year at the Royal Academy beside two views inspired by its 1840 trip, it is a unique example in the larger 74 x 116 cm format and the only one with a narration.
The three pictures from the title are visible but so tiny that they cannot be identified. Probably Turner himself did not try it. It is pure fancy : no date has been forwarded for that special solemnity. It is even missing the usual bird's eye view of Canaletto's paintings.
This oil on canvas was sold for $ 33.6M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 46.
Another entry in the same 1841 exhibition was the view of La Giudecca, oil on canvas 61 x 92 cm sold for $ 36M by Christie's on April 6, 2006, lot 97.
Bellini's Three Pictures by Turner, sold for $ 33.6M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 46. Define why such an unusual theme within Turner's series of Venice. Influence of Giovanni Bellini on Turner.
The painting in question is J.M.W. Turner's Depositing of John Bellini's Three Pictures in La Chiesa Redentore, Venice (1841, oil on canvas, approx. 73.7 × 115.6 cm). It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1841 and later formed part of the Paul G. Allen Collection, selling for $33,595,000 at Christie's New York on November 9, 2022, as lot 46 in the "Visionary: The Paul G. Allen Collection Part I" sale.
This work stands out as unusual within Turner's extensive series of Venice paintings (over 30 oils and many watercolors from his visits in 1819, 1833, and especially 1840) for several key reasons:
Influence of Giovanni Bellini on Turner
Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430–1516) was a foundational figure in Venetian Renaissance painting, renowned for pioneering the use of oil paint in Venice (adopting Flemish techniques), creating luminous, atmospheric effects, soft modeling of forms, rich color harmonies, and a poetic integration of figures with landscape/light. His altarpieces and Madonnas feature glowing, diffused light, subtle tonal transitions, and a sense of serene, spiritual harmony—qualities that helped define the "Venetian style" later developed by Giorgione, Titian, and others.
Turner deeply admired the Venetian masters, including Bellini, as embodiments of color, light, and atmospheric mastery. In his later career, Turner increasingly pursued similar ideals: dissolving outlines in light and color, prioritizing mood and sensation over precise detail. While Turner was more directly influenced by later Venetians like Titian (whose color he studied intensely) and Canaletto (whose topographical precision he transcended), Bellini represents an earlier root of that Venetian tradition of light and color as central expressive tools.
By titling and composing this painting around Bellini, Turner pays explicit tribute—positioning himself as a modern heir to the Venetian coloristic legacy. The hazy, luminous rendering of the scene (with figures and architecture almost melting into golden light) echoes Bellini's own atmospheric sensitivity, even if Turner's abstraction goes much further toward Romantic sublimity. Art historians note this work as a "tour de force of emotion and mood," where Turner uses the Bellini reference to reflect on artistic continuity, the passage of time, and Venice's enduring allure as a place of artistic pilgrimage.
In summary, the unusual theme allowed Turner to blend historical reverence, narrative interest, and his signature atmospheric innovation—making it a standout in his Venetian output and a bridge between Renaissance tradition and Romantic vision.
A view of Venice painted in 1841 in Turner's pre-impressionist brush work of the period is a tribute to his earliest great predecessor in the city, Giovanni Bellini. Titled Depositing of John Bellini's Three Pictures in La Chiesa Redentore, it depicts a flowing procession forwarding three pictures in the leading gondola, in the follow of Canaletto's successful theme of festivities.
Although it was exhibited in the same year at the Royal Academy beside two views inspired by its 1840 trip, it is a unique example in the larger 74 x 116 cm format and the only one with a narration.
The three pictures from the title are visible but so tiny that they cannot be identified. Probably Turner himself did not try it. It is pure fancy : no date has been forwarded for that special solemnity. It is even missing the usual bird's eye view of Canaletto's paintings.
This oil on canvas was sold for $ 33.6M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 46.
Another entry in the same 1841 exhibition was the view of La Giudecca, oil on canvas 61 x 92 cm sold for $ 36M by Christie's on April 6, 2006, lot 97.
Bellini's Three Pictures by Turner, sold for $ 33.6M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 46. Define why such an unusual theme within Turner's series of Venice. Influence of Giovanni Bellini on Turner.
The painting in question is J.M.W. Turner's Depositing of John Bellini's Three Pictures in La Chiesa Redentore, Venice (1841, oil on canvas, approx. 73.7 × 115.6 cm). It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1841 and later formed part of the Paul G. Allen Collection, selling for $33,595,000 at Christie's New York on November 9, 2022, as lot 46 in the "Visionary: The Paul G. Allen Collection Part I" sale.
This work stands out as unusual within Turner's extensive series of Venice paintings (over 30 oils and many watercolors from his visits in 1819, 1833, and especially 1840) for several key reasons:
- Most of Turner's Venetian works are atmospheric, light-drenched views of the city's canals, lagoons, architecture, and marine life—often from the water (e.g., views from the Giudecca, the Piazzetta, or involving the Doge's ceremonies). They emphasize dissolving light, mist, reflection, and the sublime fusion of water, sky, and stone, with human figures typically small and incidental, subordinate to nature's overwhelming effects and the city's ethereal, dream-like quality.
- In contrast, this painting depicts a specific, narrative, historical (or invented) event: the ceremonial carrying and depositing of three paintings by Giovanni Bellini into the church of Il Redentore (a prominent Palladian church on the Giudecca island, designed by Andrea Palladio to commemorate the end of a plague). The composition centers on a crowd of figures in procession, with the framed paintings as the focal (though hazily rendered) elements amid bustling activity, gondolas, and architecture. This makes it more figurative, anecdotal, and story-driven than Turner's typical Venetian scenes, which rarely feature such explicit human-centered ceremony or art-historical tribute.
Influence of Giovanni Bellini on Turner
Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430–1516) was a foundational figure in Venetian Renaissance painting, renowned for pioneering the use of oil paint in Venice (adopting Flemish techniques), creating luminous, atmospheric effects, soft modeling of forms, rich color harmonies, and a poetic integration of figures with landscape/light. His altarpieces and Madonnas feature glowing, diffused light, subtle tonal transitions, and a sense of serene, spiritual harmony—qualities that helped define the "Venetian style" later developed by Giorgione, Titian, and others.
Turner deeply admired the Venetian masters, including Bellini, as embodiments of color, light, and atmospheric mastery. In his later career, Turner increasingly pursued similar ideals: dissolving outlines in light and color, prioritizing mood and sensation over precise detail. While Turner was more directly influenced by later Venetians like Titian (whose color he studied intensely) and Canaletto (whose topographical precision he transcended), Bellini represents an earlier root of that Venetian tradition of light and color as central expressive tools.
By titling and composing this painting around Bellini, Turner pays explicit tribute—positioning himself as a modern heir to the Venetian coloristic legacy. The hazy, luminous rendering of the scene (with figures and architecture almost melting into golden light) echoes Bellini's own atmospheric sensitivity, even if Turner's abstraction goes much further toward Romantic sublimity. Art historians note this work as a "tour de force of emotion and mood," where Turner uses the Bellini reference to reflect on artistic continuity, the passage of time, and Venice's enduring allure as a place of artistic pilgrimage.
In summary, the unusual theme allowed Turner to blend historical reverence, narrative interest, and his signature atmospheric innovation—making it a standout in his Venetian output and a bridge between Renaissance tradition and Romantic vision.
3
1841 Heidelberg
2013 SOLD for $ 4.6M by Sotheby's
Turner is the finest illustrator of the European landscapes. In 1840, the engraver Thomas Prior commissions him for a view of Heidelberg. The small town on the Neckar is one of the most enchanting sites, with its bridge, its church, and the ruins of its palace on the hillside.
At 65, Turner is at the top of his art. He expresses in his watercolors the exceptional light and iridescence from poor weather conditions. The landscape is always identifiable and improved with small characters engaged in their daily tasks.
To respond to the order, he sketches Heidelberg when the rain has stopped and the rainbow is just beginning to rise. This large watercolor, 35 x 53 cm, was probably made in 1841. It will be published in 1846 by Prior.
The artwork presents a curiosity that is not a fantasy. Several characters are in medieval costume. Turner remains a witness of his time : in Heidelberg, university students used to dress in that way.
It was sold by Sotheby's for $ 4.6M on January 31, 2013, lot 101. The image is sourced from Sotheby's in Wikimedia.
At 65, Turner is at the top of his art. He expresses in his watercolors the exceptional light and iridescence from poor weather conditions. The landscape is always identifiable and improved with small characters engaged in their daily tasks.
To respond to the order, he sketches Heidelberg when the rain has stopped and the rainbow is just beginning to rise. This large watercolor, 35 x 53 cm, was probably made in 1841. It will be published in 1846 by Prior.
The artwork presents a curiosity that is not a fantasy. Several characters are in medieval costume. Turner remains a witness of his time : in Heidelberg, university students used to dress in that way.
It was sold by Sotheby's for $ 4.6M on January 31, 2013, lot 101. The image is sourced from Sotheby's in Wikimedia.
4
1842 The Blue Rigi
2006 SOLD for £ 5.8 M by Christie's
Turner travels a lot, sketching the figures of the landscapes in his notebooks. He wishes to express the sublime while respecting sufficiently the topographic balance so that the location is immediately recognizable. He adds the atmosphere by the colors of the extreme hours of the day highlighted by the lightness and spontaneity of the watercolor.
He is a great innovator of color pictures. He succeeds in applying to oil painting the technique of overlapping wet colors that he had previously developed for watercolor. On his return from his 1840 trip to Venice, he achieves in both techniques the hues halfway between mist and dream for which he is rightly regarded as a precursor of impressionism.
The mountains appeal this idealist by their paradox between the aesthetic beauty of a calm day and the unstoppable power of its storms. From 1841 to 1844 he travels Switzerland in four successive trips. Murray's travel handbook does not leave his pocket : the legends created by the interaction between men and mountains nourish the creativity of the artist.
During the first of these four trips, Turner radically changed his business strategy. Previously he aimed at editing his images by printers. He now considers that watercolor can become a high quality product, providing the customer with an illusion of presence that exceeds that of oil painting. The large format allows him to add with his subtle touch and fine line the details that animate the scenery.
Back in his workshop after his 1841 trip, Turner prepares fifteen 24 x 30 cm views of Lucerne and its surroundings for demonstrating the light effect to his clients, with the project of copying each sketch in a larger 30 x 45 cm as a single piece. This uniqueness enables him to raise the price of these "finished" watercolors to 80 guineas each, a very high figure at that time.
In the spring of 1842 his commercial agent Thomas Griffith organizes in London the sale of ten artworks of which only four were completed at that time. The other eleven sketches enabled to appreciate in advance the effect of the final work.
Three of the exhibited scenery show the Rigi beyond the Lake of Lucerne at different hours of the day. The mountain is dark before dawn, blue at sunrise and red at twilight. These pictures precede Monet's variations of light on the Poplars and on the Cathedral of Rouen by half a century, although Turner did not conceive them as a series.
Griffith selects four clients for this operation. Three of them are great collectors of modern art. The very young John Ruskin whose reputation as an art critic is already established is the fourth. He will later rightly recognize that this series of watercolors is the best of Turner in his entire career in that technique.
The most ancient collector does not accept the invitation. The most motivated is Munro of Novar who in 1836 had the rare honor of being accepted as Turner's traveling companion. He leaves with three finished watercolors and buys two of the future works. Ruskin also chooses two future works.
The other customer is the whaling tycoon Bicknell who had bought in 1841 the view of the Giudecca. He had a good taste : his oil on canvas was sold for $ 36M by Christie's in 2006.
In the sharing of the Swiss views, Bicknell takes the Blue Rigi, one of the four immediately available watercolors 30 x 45 cm.
This picture of the mountain against the light at dawn is a masterpiece of pre-impressionist art with the clarity and luminosity of a watercolor on paper. Warm and varied colors cancel the drawing, in the admirable blur of a sunrise. In the foreground, sharp tiny characters observe the landscape from the shores of the Lake of Lucerne.
It was sold for £ 5.8M by Christie's on June 5, 2006, lot 53. This stunning drawing is now owned by Tate Britain. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
He is a great innovator of color pictures. He succeeds in applying to oil painting the technique of overlapping wet colors that he had previously developed for watercolor. On his return from his 1840 trip to Venice, he achieves in both techniques the hues halfway between mist and dream for which he is rightly regarded as a precursor of impressionism.
The mountains appeal this idealist by their paradox between the aesthetic beauty of a calm day and the unstoppable power of its storms. From 1841 to 1844 he travels Switzerland in four successive trips. Murray's travel handbook does not leave his pocket : the legends created by the interaction between men and mountains nourish the creativity of the artist.
During the first of these four trips, Turner radically changed his business strategy. Previously he aimed at editing his images by printers. He now considers that watercolor can become a high quality product, providing the customer with an illusion of presence that exceeds that of oil painting. The large format allows him to add with his subtle touch and fine line the details that animate the scenery.
Back in his workshop after his 1841 trip, Turner prepares fifteen 24 x 30 cm views of Lucerne and its surroundings for demonstrating the light effect to his clients, with the project of copying each sketch in a larger 30 x 45 cm as a single piece. This uniqueness enables him to raise the price of these "finished" watercolors to 80 guineas each, a very high figure at that time.
In the spring of 1842 his commercial agent Thomas Griffith organizes in London the sale of ten artworks of which only four were completed at that time. The other eleven sketches enabled to appreciate in advance the effect of the final work.
Three of the exhibited scenery show the Rigi beyond the Lake of Lucerne at different hours of the day. The mountain is dark before dawn, blue at sunrise and red at twilight. These pictures precede Monet's variations of light on the Poplars and on the Cathedral of Rouen by half a century, although Turner did not conceive them as a series.
Griffith selects four clients for this operation. Three of them are great collectors of modern art. The very young John Ruskin whose reputation as an art critic is already established is the fourth. He will later rightly recognize that this series of watercolors is the best of Turner in his entire career in that technique.
The most ancient collector does not accept the invitation. The most motivated is Munro of Novar who in 1836 had the rare honor of being accepted as Turner's traveling companion. He leaves with three finished watercolors and buys two of the future works. Ruskin also chooses two future works.
The other customer is the whaling tycoon Bicknell who had bought in 1841 the view of the Giudecca. He had a good taste : his oil on canvas was sold for $ 36M by Christie's in 2006.
In the sharing of the Swiss views, Bicknell takes the Blue Rigi, one of the four immediately available watercolors 30 x 45 cm.
This picture of the mountain against the light at dawn is a masterpiece of pre-impressionist art with the clarity and luminosity of a watercolor on paper. Warm and varied colors cancel the drawing, in the admirable blur of a sunrise. In the foreground, sharp tiny characters observe the landscape from the shores of the Lake of Lucerne.
It was sold for £ 5.8M by Christie's on June 5, 2006, lot 53. This stunning drawing is now owned by Tate Britain. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
5
1845 Seaside at Folkestone
1984 SOLD for £ 7.4M by Sotheby's
A pre-impressionist oil on canvas painted in 1845 showing the seaside at Folkestone was sold for £ 7.4M by Sotheby's on July 5, 1984, the highest price recorded at auction at that time for any work of art.
Turner had a rest in May 1845 in Margate in the guesthouse of his companion woman Sophia Booth. He then toured the French side of the Channel to view the cliffs between Ambleteuse and Boulogne.
From that year a sketchbook titled Channel includes sky studies, catching in watercolor some moments, anticipating both the capture of weather moments by Monet and the abstract art.
Folkestone is a sea resort on the Channel, located 50 km south of Margate and 15 km west of Dover. An oil on canvas painted in 1845 showing the seaside at Folkestone was sold for £ 7.4M by Sotheby's on July 5, 1984.
From 1846 Turner went to live with Mrs Booth in Chelsea where he was known as Mr Booth ir Admiral Booth.
Turner had a rest in May 1845 in Margate in the guesthouse of his companion woman Sophia Booth. He then toured the French side of the Channel to view the cliffs between Ambleteuse and Boulogne.
From that year a sketchbook titled Channel includes sky studies, catching in watercolor some moments, anticipating both the capture of weather moments by Monet and the abstract art.
Folkestone is a sea resort on the Channel, located 50 km south of Margate and 15 km west of Dover. An oil on canvas painted in 1845 showing the seaside at Folkestone was sold for £ 7.4M by Sotheby's on July 5, 1984.
From 1846 Turner went to live with Mrs Booth in Chelsea where he was known as Mr Booth ir Admiral Booth.
6
mid 1840s The Bridge
2019 SOLD for £ 8.2M by Sotheby's
Light is the main theme of Turner's art throughout his career. He successively mastered watercolor and oil and became an illustrator for spreading his vision to a wider audience. Light does not exist without the landscape and the sea. The early inspirers of Turner are poets who sang the beauty of nature such as James Thomson or Lord Byron.
He admires the Liber Veritatis of Le Lorrain. A series of 71 images engraved between 1807 and 1819 under the title Liber Studiorum brings together Turner's landscape studies that can indeed be used by clients to commission "finished works".
Time passes. Turner is famous despite his eccentric temperament. His artistic creativity remains intact. He is aware that his art is unprecedented and decides to bequeath hundreds of pieces to the British nation. Eager for a posthumous recognition, he nevertheless flees his lifetime celebrity, spending his last years in Chelsea under the name of Mr Booth which was the surname of his companion Sophia.
In his later works the landscapes are literally wrapped in light, with a gradual vanishing of figurative details. He retrieves his dear old themes of the Liber Studiorum, which he reissues in 1845 in fifteen additional copies printed from the original plates under the influence of Ruskin.
The corpus of these late paintings made by Turner in direct relationship with the Liber includes nine large size artworks. Only one is still in private hands. This oil on canvas 88 x 118 cm was sold for £ 8.2M from a lower estimate of £ 4M by Sotheby's on July 3, 2019, lot 11.
This painting is inspired by an image of the Liber titled The Bridge in the Middle Distance. A confusion with the views of Italy, perhaps due to the light of the Venice views painted after his 1840 trip, has long masked the topographical theme of this image, the double Walton Bridge on the Thames, one of his favorite sites. The landscapes of J.M.W. Turner are universal.
He admires the Liber Veritatis of Le Lorrain. A series of 71 images engraved between 1807 and 1819 under the title Liber Studiorum brings together Turner's landscape studies that can indeed be used by clients to commission "finished works".
Time passes. Turner is famous despite his eccentric temperament. His artistic creativity remains intact. He is aware that his art is unprecedented and decides to bequeath hundreds of pieces to the British nation. Eager for a posthumous recognition, he nevertheless flees his lifetime celebrity, spending his last years in Chelsea under the name of Mr Booth which was the surname of his companion Sophia.
In his later works the landscapes are literally wrapped in light, with a gradual vanishing of figurative details. He retrieves his dear old themes of the Liber Studiorum, which he reissues in 1845 in fifteen additional copies printed from the original plates under the influence of Ruskin.
The corpus of these late paintings made by Turner in direct relationship with the Liber includes nine large size artworks. Only one is still in private hands. This oil on canvas 88 x 118 cm was sold for £ 8.2M from a lower estimate of £ 4M by Sotheby's on July 3, 2019, lot 11.
This painting is inspired by an image of the Liber titled The Bridge in the Middle Distance. A confusion with the views of Italy, perhaps due to the light of the Venice views painted after his 1840 trip, has long masked the topographical theme of this image, the double Walton Bridge on the Thames, one of his favorite sites. The landscapes of J.M.W. Turner are universal.
#AuctionUpdate Water under the Bridge: Coming to the market for the first time in over 35 years, #Turner’s idealised, Italianate landscape, inspired by Walton Bridge in Surrey, totals £8,171,000. #SothebysOldMasters pic.twitter.com/BjEPIdwcvH
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) July 3, 2019
1844-1847 The Peace of Isaiah
2020 SOLD for $ 4.6M by Christie's
Born in a borough of Bucks County and raised in the Quaker belief, Edward Hicks hesitated for a long time between preaching and painting. Quakers are austere and refuse any collusion with luxury. Around 1820 Hicks began his series of paintings titled Peaceable Kingdom of which 62 are known.
Each opus shows the holy land of the messianic prophecies of Isaiah. In the background William Penn negotiates peace with the Delaware Indians. Founder of Bucks County, Penn is the local hero and an example to follow. First Quaker in America, he knew by his good will to obtain this lasting agreement between two communities which were considered as irreconcilable.
Early examples of the Peaceable Kingdom frequently include an eight-verse sermon directly inspired by Isaiah 11: 6-7 which establishes the spiritual relationship between the two stories :
When the great Penn his famous treaty made
With indian chiefs beneath the Elm tree's shade
The wolf did with the lambkin dwell in peace
His grim carnivorous nature there did cease
The leopard with the harmless kid laid down
And not one savage beast was seen to frown
The lion with the fatling on did move
A little child was leading them in love
In 1827 a cousin of the artist named Elias Hicks generated the first great split in the community, in a rural reaction against the bourgeois trend of the Philadelphia Quakers. Banners and poems disappear from Edward's paintings, presumably for protection against factious interpretations.
The detail of the composition changes. The Messianic child with an adult head and wisdom is relegated to the background, leaving the place of honor to the reclining leopard. Suddenly in an image created in 1844 the leopard rises on his four legs, arches his back and howls to encourage his female to action.
On January 24, 2020, Christie's sold for $ 4.6M a Peaceable Kingdom painted between 1844 and 1847 with the same militant attitude of the leopard. This oil on canvas 60 x 80 cm had been estimated $ 1.5M, lot 211.
This feline energy is not irremediable. A Peaceable Kingdom 66 x 75 cm painted between 1846 and 1848 with again the leopard of serenity was sold in 2010 by Sotheby's in a private sale for $ 7M after the cancellation for non-payment of the bidding of May 22, 2008 which had reached $ 9.7M including premium.
At the end of his life, Edward Hicks may have had metaphysical doubts. Dated circa 1849, Washington at the Delaware indeed tells a glorious episode in local history, but this resolutely militaristic theme seems to be in total opposition to the Quaker pacifism.
Each opus shows the holy land of the messianic prophecies of Isaiah. In the background William Penn negotiates peace with the Delaware Indians. Founder of Bucks County, Penn is the local hero and an example to follow. First Quaker in America, he knew by his good will to obtain this lasting agreement between two communities which were considered as irreconcilable.
Early examples of the Peaceable Kingdom frequently include an eight-verse sermon directly inspired by Isaiah 11: 6-7 which establishes the spiritual relationship between the two stories :
When the great Penn his famous treaty made
With indian chiefs beneath the Elm tree's shade
The wolf did with the lambkin dwell in peace
His grim carnivorous nature there did cease
The leopard with the harmless kid laid down
And not one savage beast was seen to frown
The lion with the fatling on did move
A little child was leading them in love
In 1827 a cousin of the artist named Elias Hicks generated the first great split in the community, in a rural reaction against the bourgeois trend of the Philadelphia Quakers. Banners and poems disappear from Edward's paintings, presumably for protection against factious interpretations.
The detail of the composition changes. The Messianic child with an adult head and wisdom is relegated to the background, leaving the place of honor to the reclining leopard. Suddenly in an image created in 1844 the leopard rises on his four legs, arches his back and howls to encourage his female to action.
On January 24, 2020, Christie's sold for $ 4.6M a Peaceable Kingdom painted between 1844 and 1847 with the same militant attitude of the leopard. This oil on canvas 60 x 80 cm had been estimated $ 1.5M, lot 211.
This feline energy is not irremediable. A Peaceable Kingdom 66 x 75 cm painted between 1846 and 1848 with again the leopard of serenity was sold in 2010 by Sotheby's in a private sale for $ 7M after the cancellation for non-payment of the bidding of May 22, 2008 which had reached $ 9.7M including premium.
At the end of his life, Edward Hicks may have had metaphysical doubts. Dated circa 1849, Washington at the Delaware indeed tells a glorious episode in local history, but this resolutely militaristic theme seems to be in total opposition to the Quaker pacifism.
The Important American Furniture, Folk Art and Silver sale in #AmericanaWeek #NewYork is led by a magnificent Edward Hicks, ‘Peaceable Kingdom’ - a “Late Kingdom” masterpiece made at the height of the artist’s career and one of the most successful examples of his famous subject. pic.twitter.com/TFr3dixsjZ
— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) December 21, 2019
1846-1848 The Peaceable Kingdom with the Leopard of Serenity by Edward Hicks
2008 SOLD for $ 9.7M by Sotheby's (UNPAID 4 months later)
See pre sale release by Artdaily.
The image is shared by WikiGallery.
The image is shared by WikiGallery.
1845 Corot above the Fireplace
2018 SOLD for $ 9M by Christie's
The trend in France is in the historical landscape. Corot is not someone complicated. He enjoys walking around, simply. Like the English tourists, he draws many sketches. Following the example of Michallon, he also paints outdoors in oil on canvas. These small size paintings are not intended for his trade but to provide inspiration for the background of his genre scenes.
Nobody is really convinced by the art of Corot until the young Baudelaire, in 1845, observes that the simplicity of his landscapes is not naive but is instead a supreme harmony. As a result Corot's art is forever unclassifiable, between classicism and modernism. Despite his pleasure in open-air painting, he cannot be considered as a forerunner of the Impressionnistes, in the opposite of Boudin and Courbet slightly later.
Throughout his life Corot has a lot of friends. He supplies paintings to a magistrate of Mantes whom he met from 1840 and decorates in his own hand the walls of the bathroom with Italian views.
Corot had visited Venice in 1828 and 1834. For the same friend he painted in 1845 an enlarged version in the format 48 x 82 cm of a view of the quay of the Schiavoni towards Santa Maria della Salute.
In 1957 this painting caught the attention of David Rockefeller. It is not a Canaletto : the animation is poor. It is not a Guardi : the sky is too blue. It is neither a Turner nor a Monet : the line is too sharp to offer an atmosphere. Despite the confusing perspective on the Piazzetta, it is not a wide-angle photo. The erroneous shadows of earlier versions of this image have fortunately been rectified.
This bright painting has two other qualities : it exudes a great serenity and its width is in harmony with the fireplace of the library in the country house at Hudson Pines. It superseded at this place a Jas de Bouffan by Cézanne of which Rockefeller was bored and was to remain there until his death. It was sold for $ 9M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Christie's in New York on May 8, 2018, lot 4.
Nobody is really convinced by the art of Corot until the young Baudelaire, in 1845, observes that the simplicity of his landscapes is not naive but is instead a supreme harmony. As a result Corot's art is forever unclassifiable, between classicism and modernism. Despite his pleasure in open-air painting, he cannot be considered as a forerunner of the Impressionnistes, in the opposite of Boudin and Courbet slightly later.
Throughout his life Corot has a lot of friends. He supplies paintings to a magistrate of Mantes whom he met from 1840 and decorates in his own hand the walls of the bathroom with Italian views.
Corot had visited Venice in 1828 and 1834. For the same friend he painted in 1845 an enlarged version in the format 48 x 82 cm of a view of the quay of the Schiavoni towards Santa Maria della Salute.
In 1957 this painting caught the attention of David Rockefeller. It is not a Canaletto : the animation is poor. It is not a Guardi : the sky is too blue. It is neither a Turner nor a Monet : the line is too sharp to offer an atmosphere. Despite the confusing perspective on the Piazzetta, it is not a wide-angle photo. The erroneous shadows of earlier versions of this image have fortunately been rectified.
This bright painting has two other qualities : it exudes a great serenity and its width is in harmony with the fireplace of the library in the country house at Hudson Pines. It superseded at this place a Jas de Bouffan by Cézanne of which Rockefeller was bored and was to remain there until his death. It was sold for $ 9M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Christie's in New York on May 8, 2018, lot 4.
Nous serons ouverts ce soir jusqu'à 19h30 pour vous permettre d'admirer les oeuvres de la collection #Rockefeller avant leur départ. Voici également une découverte en vidéo de l'exposition : https://t.co/AWyhGw672E pic.twitter.com/xHGDkuLfl0
— Christie's Paris (@christiesparis) March 21, 2018
1847 Mauritius Stamps
1
The Invitation Cover
2021 SOLD for € 8.1M before fees by Gärtner
The stamp, circulated by the British administration in 1840, was gradually adopted by other countries. In 1847 Mauritius was the seventh territory and the first British colony to release this method of payment for the conveyance of the postage.
The printing plate is made in intaglio by a local engraver in imitation of the stamps then applicable in Great Britain with the profile of Queen Victoria.
The first impression is made with a unique copper plate on which a single figure of each value has been engraved. The inks are different, red orange for the penny and dark blue for the 2 pence and each copy is individually printed. The plaque was sold for € 1.23M by David Feldman on December 1, 2016.
The stamps are inscribed POST OFFICE on the left edge, which corresponds to the marks previously used by this post, and also to the first US stamps issued in the same year.
The issue of 500 stamps of each denomination is ready just in time to be used for an invitation to a costume ball at Government House. The postal rate is 1 penny for a delivery in Port Louis and 2 pence for the rest of the island.
This first release is unique. A few months later, new plaques are prepared for multiple printing. The two editions differ in the text, which becomes POST PAID.
One of four surviving covers mailed for the invitation to the ball was sold for € 8.1M before fees by Gärtner on June 26, 2021, lot 1. It is illustrated with also the Bordeaux cover on the post sale release shared by Barnebys. It had been sold for CHF 1.4M before fees by David Feldman on November 3, 1993, lot 452.
This cover was circulated with the One Penny stamp. The recipient, "H. Adam Esq Junr", was locally best known : no address has been written. He remembered fifty years later having attended the ball.
The stamp is clean with clear margins. The mark PAID cancels the stamp and a mark PENNY POST is on the top left side of the cover. The reverse is stamped by the Mauritius Post Office at a date, September 27, 1847, which is the 7th day of the issue. Its provenance is unbroken from its first addressee to now. It was once in the collection of King Carol of Romania.
The printing plate is made in intaglio by a local engraver in imitation of the stamps then applicable in Great Britain with the profile of Queen Victoria.
The first impression is made with a unique copper plate on which a single figure of each value has been engraved. The inks are different, red orange for the penny and dark blue for the 2 pence and each copy is individually printed. The plaque was sold for € 1.23M by David Feldman on December 1, 2016.
The stamps are inscribed POST OFFICE on the left edge, which corresponds to the marks previously used by this post, and also to the first US stamps issued in the same year.
The issue of 500 stamps of each denomination is ready just in time to be used for an invitation to a costume ball at Government House. The postal rate is 1 penny for a delivery in Port Louis and 2 pence for the rest of the island.
This first release is unique. A few months later, new plaques are prepared for multiple printing. The two editions differ in the text, which becomes POST PAID.
One of four surviving covers mailed for the invitation to the ball was sold for € 8.1M before fees by Gärtner on June 26, 2021, lot 1. It is illustrated with also the Bordeaux cover on the post sale release shared by Barnebys. It had been sold for CHF 1.4M before fees by David Feldman on November 3, 1993, lot 452.
This cover was circulated with the One Penny stamp. The recipient, "H. Adam Esq Junr", was locally best known : no address has been written. He remembered fifty years later having attended the ball.
The stamp is clean with clear margins. The mark PAID cancels the stamp and a mark PENNY POST is on the top left side of the cover. The reverse is stamped by the Mauritius Post Office at a date, September 27, 1847, which is the 7th day of the issue. Its provenance is unbroken from its first addressee to now. It was once in the collection of King Carol of Romania.
An #envelope flanked by a rare #stamp has been auctioned for a #record sum in Germany.
— Barnebys.co.uk (@Barnebysuk) July 11, 2021
It hails from 1847 #Mauritius:
2
The Bordeaux Cover
1993 SOLD for CHF 6.1M by David Feldman (worth US $ 4.1M at that time)
The POST OFFICE version of the Mauritius stamps is extremely rare. Four lots were sold by David Feldman on November 3, 1993 : two unused stamps and two covers.
The only known unused copy of the 1 penny was sold for CHF 1.4M before fees. One of the four unused copies of the 2 pence was sold for CHF 1.5M before fees. A cover mailed for the invitation to the ball was sold for CHF 1.4M before fees.
A cover sent from Port Louis to a wine merchant in Bordeaux has been stamped at the overseas rate and includes a copy of both denominations. Discovered in 1902 by a schoolboy who was consulting the recipient's archives, it is kept with its letter. It was sold for CHF 5M before fees, CHF 6.1M including premium, lot 155.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The only known unused copy of the 1 penny was sold for CHF 1.4M before fees. One of the four unused copies of the 2 pence was sold for CHF 1.5M before fees. A cover mailed for the invitation to the ball was sold for CHF 1.4M before fees.
A cover sent from Port Louis to a wine merchant in Bordeaux has been stamped at the overseas rate and includes a copy of both denominations. Discovered in 1902 by a schoolboy who was consulting the recipient's archives, it is kept with its letter. It was sold for CHF 5M before fees, CHF 6.1M including premium, lot 155.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
