Lot number 2377 - Auction 155
NEAPOLITANISCHE FISCHERINNEN BEIM BADEN IM MONDLICHT ÜBERRASCHT

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER (ATTR./CIRCLE) 1775 London - 1851 ibid. NEAPOLITAN FISHERWOMEN SURPRISED BATHING BY MOONLIGHT Oil on panel. 73 x 90 cm (f. 84 x 102 cm). Restoration of a continuous horizontal crack. Frame (partially damaged). The composition repeats, on an enlarged scale, the compositional scheme known from two versions by Turner of the same subject: the version executed on canvas (Catalogue Raisonné Butlin/Joll, no. 388) and the smaller-scale version on panel (no. 389). As in these works, the scene unfolds on a shore, depicting a group of female figures at the water's edge and the contrast between the dark masses of foliage and the moonlight. The historiography of this motif is documented in the Catalogue Raisonné. It is stated therein that a confusion between the canvas and panel versions already existed in the 19th century, due to a lack of information regarding the support in early exhibition and auction catalogues, as well as the intertwining of their provenances in the 1850s and 1860s. The reappearance of the canvas version in 1974 confirmed the existence of at least two temporally and conceptually closely related works, while the question of identifying the painting exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840 remains a subject of scholarly debate. Literature:Butlin, Martin; Joll, Evelyn. The Paintings of J. M. W. Turner. Revised and enlarged edition. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977. Provenance: Private Collection.