From Spenser's Fairy Queen (Liber Studiorum, part VII, plate 36)
Medium
Etching and mezzotint; first state of four
Dimensions
plate: 7 3/16 x 10 3/8 in. (18.3 x 26.4 cm) sheet: 8 1/4 x 11 7/16 in. (21 x 29.1 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1928
Accession Number
28.97.36
Tags
Art Historical Context
This etching and mezzotint print, created by J.M.W. Turner in with engraver Thomas Hodgetts, forms plate 36 of the artist’s ambitious *Liber Studiorum* series, published in June 1811. Inspired by Edmund Spenser’s epic poem *The Faerie Queene*, the work captures a lush, mountainous landscape animated by birds and dense foliage. Turner conceived the *Liber* as both a teaching tool and a showcase for landscape art, organizing its images into categories that celebrated nature’s moods and forms. Executed in the first state of four, the print demonstrates Turner’s masterful use of etching for delic...
About the Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner|Joseph Mallord William Turner|Thomas Hodgetts · 1775–1851
Joseph Mallord William Turner, born on 23 April 1775 in London's Covent Garden to barber William Turner and Mary Marshall, emerged as a child prodigy amid personal hardships. His mother suffered mental illness and died in Bethlem Hospital in 1804, while his father supported his early sketches by displaying them in his shop. Around age 10, Turner stayed with his uncle Joseph Mallord William Marshal...