The Golden Bough (painting)

The English painter J. M. W. Turner painted several scenes based on Virgil's Aeneid, including Lake Avernus: Aeneas and the Cumaean Sibyl of 1814–1815. This painting relates to the myth of the Cumaean Sibyl, a prophetic priestess of Apollo who lived at Cumae. He painted the Sibyl again in 1823's The Bay of Baiae.^[1] to which his The Golden Bough was described by John Ruskin as a sequel.^[2]

The Golden Bough was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1834; its imagery was based on Turner's reading of Christopher Pitt's translation of Virgil.^[3] Unlike his previous paintings based on Aeneid 6, which were probably commissioned by Sir Richard Hoare,^[4] the decision to depict the Golden Bough seems to have been Turner's own.^[5] Eric Shanes suggests that Turner was inspired by the death of his father in 1829.^[6]

The painting depicts a scene from book VI of the ancient Roman epic Aeneid by Virgil. Turner has used Christopher Pitt's English translation.^[7] The hero Aeneas wants to enter the Underworld to consult his dead father. The Sibyl of Cumae tells him that he needs to offer a golden bough from a sacred tree to Proserpine in order to enter. The painting shows the landscape around the lake Avernus, which is the entrance to the Underworld. The Sibyl stands to the left and holds a sickle and the cut bough. Dancing Fates in the background and a snake in the foreground forebode the mysteries of the Underworld.^[8]

Turner's painting diverges from Virgil's narrative on several points: Aeneas is not present, though the Sibyl holds up the Golden Bough, which does not leave Aeneas's possession in the Aeneid after he removes it from the tree until he deposits it in the underworld. The scene also depicts several half-dancers and two women, apparently watching them. They seem to ignore the bough itself; Shanes interprets this as a statement about the indifference of human beings, possibly towards religion or possibly towards art.^[9] He further describes the painting as a reflection on the discrepancy between the mortality of an artist and the immortality of art.^[10]

The collector Robert Vernon bought the painting before it had been exhibited publicly. It was shown at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1834. Vernon gave it to the National Gallery in 1847 as part of the Vernon Gift, and in 1929 it was transferred to the Tate Gallery.^[7] It remains in the collection of the Tate galleries, but as of 2020 was not on display.^[8]