1800
watercolor
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Babylon is a 1800 watercolor by Joseph Mallord William Turner, a Romanticism work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
You see a hazy, golden landscape with crumbling ruins—what’s left of ancient Babylon. The sky glows warm, almost like sunset, but the stones look cold and forgotten. Turner didn’t visit Babylon himself. He worked from someone else’s sketch, turning it into this quiet, glowing scene. It was meant for a Bible book, but the ruins feel more like a dream than history. If you like how light softens old stones, look up *sfumato*—it’s the way artists blur edges to make things feel far away.
This watercolour by Joseph Mallord William Turner depicts a rugged, rocky landscape outside the ancient city of Babylon, with a portion of sky visible above. The composition includes seated figures in the foreground and was derived from a drawing by Sir Robert Ker Porter, later serving as the basis for an engraving in an illustrated Bible. The work was part of the Vaughan Bequest and previously belonged to Benjamin Godfrey Windus.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in 1775 at Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, where his father kept a barber and wig-making shop.
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