Apuleia in Search of Apuleius (unpublished plate, Liber Studiorum)
Designed and etched by Joseph Mallord William Turner British
Not on view
This is Turner's etched first stage of work on a print he intended to include in the series "Liber Studiorum" (Latin for Book of Studies), but never published. The composition derives from a premium-winning painting shown at the British Institution in 1814, now at the National Gallery, London. In the foreground, Apuleia, a figure Turner invented as the wife for a shepherd mentioned in Ovid's "Metamorphoses," unveils herself to a group of shepherdesses. The landscape is enlivened by a multi-arched classical bridge that spans a river near a temple, and the composition embodies Arcadian qualities associated with Claude. The finished plate was sold in 1873 with other unpublished Liber compositions, and subsequently printed and circulated.