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Creator:
Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1775–1851
Title:

Lake Avernus: Aeneas and the Cumaean Sibyl

Former Title(s):

Lake Avernus: Aeneas and the Cumaean Sybil

Date:
between 1814 and 1815
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
28 1/4 x 38 1/4 inches (71.8 x 97.2 cm), Frame: 36 1/2 × 47 × 3 inches (92.7 × 119.4 × 7.6 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1977.14.78
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Link to Frame:
B1977.14.78FR
Subject Terms:
Aeneas' visit to the underworld | armor | castle | city | costume | darkness | epics | hills | lake | landscape | legend | men | mountains | mythology | poem | relief | religious and mythological subject | Roman | ruins | ruins | shield | soldiers | the arrival of Aeneas at Cumae, where they consult Deiphobe, the Cumaean Sibyl, who foretells of Aeneas' wars in Latium | woman
Associated Places:
Averno, Lago d' | Avernus, Lake | Campania | Cumae | Italy | Napoli
Associated People:
Aeneas
Sibyl of Cumae
Publius Vergilius Maro (70 BC–19 BC), classical Roman poet
Access:
Not on view
Note: To make an appointment to see this work, please contact the Paintings and Sculpture department at ycba.paintings@yale.edu. Please visit the Paintings and Sculpture collections page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:5010
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The Cumaean Sibyl occupied a cave complex above Lake Avernus, near Naples, and was highly respected in antiquity as an oracle of Apollo. In Virgil’s Aeneid, Aeneas consults the sibyl to seek guidance on his destiny after abandoning Dido in Carthage. J. M. W. Turner shows Aeneas sacrificing to Apollo before receiving the god’s answer through the sibyl. Dissatisfied, Aeneas then asks the sibyl to let him go down to Hades to speak with his dead father. This picture was made for Sir Richard Colt Hoare, the antiquarian and amateur artist who owned the celebrated landscape garden at Stourhead in Wiltshire, which was designed to evoke the ideal Italianate landscapes that Turner emulated in this painting. Since Turner did not visit Italy until 1819, Hoare supplied Turner with his own sketches of the landscape at Cumae. Hoare intended to pair Turner’s painting with Lake Nemi with Diana and Callisto (1758) by Richard Wilson, which was already at Stourhead.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2022


The story of Aeneas and the Sibyl is in the sixth book of Virgil's Aeneid. After landing at Cumae, near Naples, Aeneas begs the Sibyl (a prophetess and priestess of Apollo) to take him into the underworld to meet the ghost of his dead father. She tells him he must first break off a golden bough from a tree in a neighboring grove to bring as an offering for Proserpine, queen of the underworld. The Sibyl then leads Aeneas to a cave near Lake Avernus-from the Greek for "birdless," owing to the noxious vapors rising from the underworld-and thence they descend. This ancient poem, about leaving the realm of light and entering the darkness, appealed powerfully to the Romantic imagination, and to Turner's interest in the landscape of myth, as well as the operation of natural light. The artist adopts here the luminous manner of Claude Lorrain, long before he had visited Rome.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2009


The story of Aeneas and the Sibyl is from the sixth book of Virgil's "Aeneid." The Trojan hero and his men land on the Italian coast at Cumae, near Naples, a famous shrine to the god Apollo. Knowing there is an entrance to the underworld near by, he begs the Sibyl (Apollo's priestess and prophetess) to take him to see the shade of his dead father. She tells him he must first break off a golden bough from a tree in a neighboring grove to take as an offering for the queen of the underworld, Proserpine. Then she leads him to a cave near Lake Avernus, named from the Greek for "birdless" since the vapors rising from the underworld killed any birds flying overhead, and here they make their descent. As the tale of a hero who braves the unknown, leaving Apollo's realm of light and sun to follow his destiny in the nether regions, this was the kind of classical legend that appealed most powerfully to the Romantic imagination.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2008
The story of Aeneas and the Sibyl is from the sixth book of Virgil's Aeneid. The Trojan hero and his men have landed on the Italian coast at Cumae, near Naples, which is famous as a shrine to the god Apollo. Here Aeneas consults the Sibyl, Deiphobe, who serves as the god's priestess and prophetic mouthpiece. He knows that within the sacred precincts there is an entrance to the underworld, and begs the Sibyl to take him down to the nether regions to see the shade of his dead father, Anchises. The Sibyl tells him of a tree in a neighboring grove that bears a golden bough; if he breaks this off and takes it as an offering to the queen of the underworld, Proserpine, it will protect him from the perils of the journey. She leads him to a cave near Lake Avernus, named from the Greek for "birdless" since its hellish vapors supposedly killed any birds flying overhead. He makes sacrificial offerings to Proserpine and Pluto; then he and the Sibyl make their descent into the underworld, carrying the golden bough. In the Elysian Fields Aeneas meets the shade of his father, who shows him the souls of his descendants as yet unborn, the line of kings, consuls, and emperors who will rule the future Rome. As the story of a hero who braves the unknown, leaving Apollo's realm of light and sun to follow his destiny in that of Stygian gloom, this was the kind of classical legend that appealed most powerfully to the Romantic imagination.
Turner shows the Sibyl holding aloft the golden bough, gesturing toward the lake, and calling upon Aeneas to follow her: "Now, Trojan, take the way thy fates afford; / Assume thy courage, and unsheathe thy sword" (from the translation by Dryden, which Turner probably used). A couple of his men and a priest are making a burnt offering, presumably part of the sacrifices to Proserpine and Pluto. In the shadows to the right, a foretaste of the darkness of the underworld, the relief carved on a piece of fallen masonry represents the parallel story of the twelfth labor of Hercules, in which the hero descends into the underworld to bring back the monstrous three-headed guard-dog Cerberus. The view over the lake is from the north side looking south. The ruins on the edge of the lake to the left were believed in Turner's time to be an ancient temple of Apollo, but are in fact Roman baths. The large building in the distance on the right is the Castle of Baiae; and the island visible on the horizon is Capri. The fall of light indicates late afternoon or early evening: Aeneas prepares to enter the darkness of the underworld just as darkness encroaches on the world above.
As the second version of a picture of more or less the same size, painted in about 1798, this is a rare instance of Turner's repeating himself.[1] He had never seen Lake Avernus (he was to make his first visit to Italy in 1819- 20) and based the first version on a topographical drawing by Sir Richard Colt Hoare of Stourhead, Wiltshire. Hoare was a lover of Italy and the Antique, and as a child had watched his grandfather Henry Hoare create the magnificent classical gardens at Stourhead, with their lake and temples-including one dedicated to Apollo. As well as providing the drawing, Hoare may actually have commissioned the first version of Lake Avernus, probably to hang as a pendant to a view of Lake Nemi by Richard Wilson that was already at Stourhead: the canvases are close in size; they deal with related subjects-Lake Nemi was associated with Apollo's sister Diana-and the Turner was obviously intended as an imitation of Wilson's style.[2] The exact chain of events is a matter for speculation, but we know that Hoare did commission this, the second version, and that it did hang as a pendant to the Wilson at Stourhead. Perhaps there was an exchange in which Turner took back the first version-which would explain why it was in his studio at his death and became part of the Turner Bequest (Tate Gallery). Certainly the second version represents the artist more impressively than the first; with its brighter palette and wonderfully subtle effects of aerial perspective, it typifies his artistic development around the middle of his career.

[1] See Butlin and Joll, 24-25 (no. 34).
[2] For the Wilson, See Solkin, 192-93 (no. 77).

Malcolm Warner

Julia Marciari-Alexander, This other Eden, paintings from the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1998, p.88, no. 31, ND1314.3 Y36 1998 (YCBA)

In a New Light: Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art (Yale University Art Gallery, 2023-03-24 - 2023-12-03) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Romanticism (Gallerie d'Italia - Piazza Scala, 2018-10-25 - 2019-03-17) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting (Yale Center for British Art, 2014-03-06 - 2014-06-01) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Turner and Italy (National Gallery of Scotland, 2009-03-26 - 2009-06-07) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Turner and Italy (Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara, 2008-11-16 - 2009-02-22) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Nobleness and Grandeur - Forging Historical Landscape in Britain, 1760 - 1850 (Yale Center for British Art, 2005-01-27 - 2005-04-24) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Great British Paintings from American Collections: Holbein to Hockney (The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 2002-02-01 - 2002-05-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Great British Paintings from American Collections: Holbein to Hockney (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-09-27 - 2001-12-30) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of South Australia, 1998-09-16 - 1998-11-15) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Queensland Art Gallery, 1998-07-15 - 1998-09-06) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998-05-01 - 1998-07-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Turner (British Council - Japan) (Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 1986-10-14 - 1986-11-16) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Turner (British Council - Japan) (The National Museum of Western Art, 1986-08-16 - 1986-10-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

J. M. W. Turner (Musée du Louvre, 1983-10-14 - 1984-01-16) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Classic Ground - British Artists and the Landscape of Italy, 1740-1830 (Yale Center for British Art, 1981-07-29 - 1981-09-20) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

J. M. W. Turner - A Selection of Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon (National Gallery of Art, 1968-10-31 - 1969-04-21) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Painting in England 1700-1850 - From The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon (Yale University Art Gallery, 1965-04-15 - 1965-06-20) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Sir Walter Armstrong, Turner, Thos. Agnew and Sons Ltd., London, 1902, p. 218, Folio A N 11 (YCBA) [OCLC]

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Christie's sale catalogue : Stourhead heirlooms: pictures by old masters of the Italian, French, and Dutch schools; fine works of the early English school, and drawings : 2 June 1883, , Christie's, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, June 2, 1883, p. 5, Lot 17, Fiche B51 (YCBA) Also Available online : Art Sales Catalgues - Lugt # 43108 [YCBA]

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Fernando Mazzocca, Romanticismo, Silvana Editoriale, Cinisello Balsamo, Milano, p. 167, fig. 47, N6917.5.R6 R66 2018 (LC) Oversize (YCBA) [YCBA]

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