Description
Rizpah keeps vigil beside bodies in a dark, moonlit landscape, with woodland enclosing the left of the scene. The Metropolitan Museum identifies her as Rizpah, protecting her executed sons from an approaching lion with a torch. Turner gives the biblical subject a nighttime setting in which the mother’s defense and the surrounding darkness belong to one grave encounter.
Published on May 23, 1812, the etching and mezzotint was designed and etched by J. M. W. Turner, with Robert Dunkarton responsible for the engraving. This impression is the fourth of four states. The work’s interest lies in the relationship between the solitary human concern and its surrounding terrain, allowing the landscape to become part of how the story’s gravity is experienced.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the J. M. W. Turner collection.
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