Joseph Mallord William Turner, 'The Parting of Hero and Leander', before 1837

The Parting of Hero and Leander

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Not on display

About the work

Overview

This picture illustrates an ancient Greek myth that was retold by later writers, including the English romantic poet, Lord Byron. Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite, lived in a tower on the Hellespont strait, which separates Europe from Asia. She was in love with Leander, a young man from the Asian side. Every night she would hold up a lamp to guide him as he swam through the water to be with her. One night the lamp blew out, and he was drowned. Hero threw herself off her tower to join him in death.

Turner breaks with the conventions of history painting, which required the principal characters be in or near the centre of the picture, almost hiding the doomed couple in shadow at the water’s edge as Leander prepares to leave. Above them on the terrace, a winged Cupid holds up a lamp and a torch. Turner constructs an exotic location of classical architecture and large, jagged rocks set against a turbulent night sky.

In-depth

This is one of Turner’s most ambitious late mythological paintings in which he brought together a range of sources to create his own interpretation of a legend.

The story of Hero and Leander was originally told by Musaeus, a Greek poet of the fourth or fifth century BC. Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite, lived in a tower in Sestos on the Hellespont strait, which separates Europe from Asia. She was in love with Leander, a young man from Abydos on the Asian side. Every night she would hold up a lamp to guide him as he swam through the water to be with her. One night the lamp blew out, and he was drowned. On seeing his dead body, Hero threw herself off her tower to join him in death. Although Turner cited an English translation of Masaeus as his source, he also included seven lines of his own poetry in the Royal Academy catalogue when the painting was exhibited in 1837.

A sketchbook study from 1802 suggests that Turner had planned a picture of Hero and Leander some 35 years before he produced this picture. The story had been painted by many artists during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, most notably by Rubens, but Turner was most likely prompted to create his version when paintings by contemporaries, Henry Howard and William Etty, were exhibited in 1806 and 1827. A further impetus came when Lord Byron’s poem, The Bride of Abydos, was published in 1813. Abydos was Leander’s home, and the poem also included reference to his and Hero’s tragic fate. Turner was a keen admirer of Byron, and had illustrated an edition of his works, so he would have known about the poem. In May 1810 Byron had also famously swum across the Hellespont from Sestos to Abydos, this celebrated feat stimulating a surge of interest in the story of the doomed couple.

The two lovers are not the largest figures in the painting. Turner breaks with the conventions of history painting, which required the principal characters be in or near the centre of the picture, and places them almost hidden in shadow at the water’s edge as Leander prepares to leave. Above them on the terrace, a winged Cupid, who has cast his bow and quiver on the ground, holds up a lamp and a torch. Hymen stands beside him. Around them, Turner constructs an imaginary location from various classical architectural elements, a wide staircase and a large floor mosaic. On the right, an exotic ‘Moorish’ tower, representing Abydos on the Turkish coast, is just visible behind the large, jagged rocks upon which ghostly sea nymphs have gathered.

As Turner’s verse states, the night is ending, as ‘love yet lingers'. Although dawn is just breaking, a crescent moon is still visible in the turbulent blue-black sky. Turner uses the darkness and deep shadows to heighten the drama of the scene and to perhaps hint at the tragedy about to occur, as Leander leaves Hero, never to return.

Key facts

Details

Full title: The Parting of Hero and Leander - from the Greek of Musaeus
Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner
Artist dates: 1775 - 1851
Date made: before 1837
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 146 × 236 cm
Acquisition credit: Turner Bequest, 1856
Inventory number: NG521
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection
Previous owners: Joseph Mallord William Turner

Provenance

Turner Bequest 1856.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Judy Egerton, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The British Paintings’, London 2000; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2009

Long Loan to Tate (2009 - 2019) (Tate Exchange Loans)

Tate Gallery (London)

25 March 2009 - 24 March 2019
2011

Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings

Tate Liverpool

22 June 2012 - 28 October 2012
2014

Late Turner: Painting Set Free

Tate Britain

10 September 2014 - 25 January 2015
2023

Masterpieces from the National Gallery

Shanghai Art Museum East

17 January 2023 - 7 May 2023

National Museum of Korea

2 June 2023 - 9 October 2023

Hong Kong Palace Museum

22 November 2023 - 11 April 2024

Chimei Museum

2 May 2024 - 1 September 2024

Bibliography

1857

R.N. Wornum, Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery, with Biographical Notices of the Painters: British School, London 1857
1899

W. Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London 1899
1903

J. Ruskin, Modern Painters, eds E.T. Cook and A. Wedderburn, The Works of John Ruskin, 39 vols, London 1903
1908

W.G. Rawlinson, The Engraved Works of J.M.W. Turner, 2 vols, London 1908
1923

H.S. Mitford, Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt, Oxford 1923
1946

M. Davies, Paintings and Drawings on the Backs of National Gallery Pictures, London 1946
1961

A.J. Finberg and H.F. Finberg, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., 2nd revised edn, Oxford 1961
1969

J. Gage, Colour in Turner: Poetry and Truth, London 1969
1970

F. Page and J. Jump, Byron, the Poetical Works, Oxford 1970
1971

M. Allott, The Poems of John Keats, London 1971
1974

J.P. Mouilleseaux, '"Léandre et Héro" de Taillasson: A propos d'un thème iconographique et littéraire', Revue du Louvre, XXIV/6, 1974
1977

K.D. Nicholson, J.M.W. Turner's Images of Antiquity, Phd Thesis, University of Pennslyvania 1977
1981

W. Gaunt, Turner, Oxford 1981
1981

J. Gage, 'Turner and the Greek Spirit', Turner Studies, I/2, 1981, pp. 14-23
1982

M. Butlin and E. Joll, L'opera completa di Turner 1793-1829, Milan 1982
1984

M. Butlin and E. Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., New Haven 1984
1987

C. Ricks (ed.), The Poems of Tennyson, London 1987
1988

K. Nicholson, 'Style as Meaning: Turner's Late Mythological Landscapes', Turner Studies, II/2, 1988, pp. 45-54
1989

A. Wilton, 'J.M.W. Turner: The Parting of Hero and Leander', Apollo, CXXXIX, 1989, pp. 46-7
1990

K.D. Nicholson, Turner's Classical Landscapes: Myth and Meaning, Princeton 1990
1990

E. Shanes, Turner's Human Landscape, London 1990
1992

D.B. Brown, Turner and Byron (exh. cat. Tate Gallery, 3 June - 20 September 1992), London 1992
1993

J. Piggott, Turner's Vignettes (exh. cat. Tate Gallery, 29 September 1993 - 13 February 1994), London 1993
1994

A. Thomas, An Illustrated Dictionary of Narrative Painting, London 1994
1997

J. Hamilton, Turner: A Life, London 1997
1997

M.D. Rincón de Arellano, 'Turner visto por sus contemporáneos', Goya, 256, 1997, pp. 235-40
1998

J. Egerton, The British School, London 1998
2000

Egerton, Judy, National Gallery Catalogues: The British Paintings, revised edn, London 2000
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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