Artwork Page for Queen Mab's Cave

Details / Information for Queen Mab's Cave

Queen Mab's Cave

after 1846

imitator of Joseph Mallord William Turner

(British, 1775–1851)
Culture
England, 19th century
Medium
oil on fabric
Measurements
Unframed: 73 x 89.5 cm (28 3/4 x 35 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade 1916.1036
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print
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Did You Know?

Queen Mab is a miniature fairy from English folklore who inspires dreams and plays pranks on people during the night. Shakespeare refers to her in both Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream,

Description

This work is a reduced copy of a painting first exhibited by Turner at the British Institution in 1846 that passed, with the rest of his immense bequest to the nation, into the collections of the National Gallery and finally, in 1954, the Tate Gallery. Several lines from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Turner's manuscript poem "Fallacies of Hope" were appended to the title in the British Institution catalogue, but they did little to explicate the nearly unintelligible concoction of fairies and Welsh ruins that make up this composition. Copies of Queen Mab's Cave by anonymous artists are abundant.
A hazy, horizontally oriented oil painting with thick brushstrokes depicts a landscape with a pale yellow castle atop a hill in the background. Below, a dark, reddish-brown archway spans blue-gray water. Small figures occupy a golden boat on the lower left, while winged figures dive through the air on the right. Bright light glows from the upper left, casting the blurred scene in a dreamlike, textured atmosphere.

Queen Mab's Cave

after 1846

Joseph Mallord William Turner

(British, 1775–1851)
England, 19th century

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