Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Fifth Plague of Egypt, engraved by Charles Turner

1808

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Etchings and Engravings for the ‘Liber Studiorum’
Medium
Etching and mezzotint on paper
Dimensions
Image: 180 × 260 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Presented by A. Acland Allen through the Art Fund 1925
Reference
A00942

Display caption

In 1799 Napoleon invaded Egypt, then part of the Ottoman Empire, as a bridgehead to India where he was negotiating with Tipu Sultan, ruler of Mysore. Defeats, uprisings and plague forced the French to abandon Egypt by 1802. Here, Turner draws a parallel between the contemporary situation in Egypt and Biblical plagues, sent by God to punish Egypt for enslaving the Israelites. This print reproduces a painting that is sometimes interpreted as a coded attack on the slave trade. This is unlikely, as its owner William Beckford inherited several Jamaican sugar plantations, laboured by enslaved people.

Gallery label, November 2022

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