My favourite painting: Lady Caroline Percy

The designer and art consultant Lady Caroline Percy chooses a vision of Ancient Rome by Turner.

Ancient Rome: Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus. The Triumphal Bridge and Palace of the Caesars Restored, exhibited 1839, oil on canvas, 36in by 48in, by J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851), Tate Collection.
Ancient Rome: Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus. The Triumphal Bridge and Palace of the Caesars Restored, exhibited 1839, oil on canvas, 36in by 48in, by J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851), Tate Collection.
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Lady Caroline Percy chooses Ancient Rome: Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus by J.M.W. Turner

‘I enjoy Turner’s vision of the story and impressionistic treatment of light, washing a golden veil over the Roman architecture and shimmering reflections on the water of the Tiber. Agrippina’s boat glides into harbour with her husband’s ashes at the end of the long journey from Antioch, where he perished.’

Lady Caroline Percy is an interior designer and consultant in fine art and antiques, founder of Hotspur Design and co-founder of Historic Decoration.

Charlotte Mullins comments on Ancient Rome

This late painting by J. M. W. Turner was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 1839, as one of a pair. Its companion, Modern Rome: Campo Vaccino, depicts the ruins of ancient Rome with goats picking their way between remaining columns. By contrast, this painting shows ancient Rome alive, imagined as a mirage of spectacular buildings and bridges that glow and pulse at this liminal time, as the sun sets and a full moon rises.

Nominally, the painting shows the widow Agrippina being rowed to shore across the Tiber, holding the ashes of her poisoned husband, Germanicus — a Roman general — in an urn. This was a favourite subject of history painters: Nicolas Poussin captured the moment of death; Peter Paul Rubens conjured a double profile ‘portrait’ of Germanicus and his wife; Benjamin West depicted Agrippina landing in Brundisium (now Brindisi) in Puglia. West had the story right, whereas Turner either applied artistic licence or was misinformed because, in AD19, Agrippina conveyed the ashes from Antioch back to Italy, landing on the east coast and not in Rome.

This was Turner’s second pairing of modern and ancient Italy. With their hazes of light and indistinct details, many critics didn’t understand them. Blackwell’s Magazine described them as ‘washy-flashy splashes of reds, blues and whites that, in their distraction, represent nothing in heaven or earth’. Today, the paintings are seen as ethereal examples of Turner’s late work that reflect on the passing of time and the rise and fall of empires.

Over 1,000 artists have been invited to paint HM The Queen.
(Image credit: Bridgeman / Alamy / Camera Press/Annigoni / Royal Collection Trust / Nicjy Philipps / Shutterstock)

The Queen's official portraits: Seven of the most extraordinary paintings from 70 years and over 1,000 sittings

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Saint George slaying the Dragon (Painting, 16th century) by Beck, Leonhard (c.1480-1542); Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria; Sun. 134,5x116 cm
(Image credit: Bridgeman Images)

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No 14, 1960, 1960, oil on canvas, 114½in by 105½in, by Mark Rothko (1903–70), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, US. 'There are no words that can adequately describe the sensation of looking at a Mark Rothko painting,' says art critic Charlotte Mullins. 'It is a transcendental experience that speaks directly to your emotions.'
(Image credit: 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko ARS, NY and DACS, London/San Francisco Museum of Modern Art/Bridgeman Images)

My Favourite Painting: Marie Soliman

Interior designer Marie Soliman chooses an unforgettable image by Mark Rothko, one of the most distinctive modern artists of the

Market, 1947, gouache, chalk and wax crayon on paper, 19¾in by 24½in, by James Fitton (1899–1982).Purchased from the Royal Academy of Arts, 1947.
(Image credit: Judy and Tim Fitton / Government Art Collection)

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The Boxer by FCB Cadell. ©The Cadell Estate / Courtesy Portland Gallery.
(Image credit: The Cadell Estate)

My Favourite Painting: Luke Edward Hall

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Samantha, 1982, oil on board, 16in by 12in, by Alex Katz (b. 1927), private collection. Alex Katz/VAGA at ARS, NY and DACS, London 2022. Courtesy of Adam Baumgold Fine Art.
(Image credit: Alex Katz)

My Favourite Painting: Nick Ashley

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Gulf Women Prepare for War, 1986, oil on canvas, 48in by 57in, by Maggi Hambling (b. 1945), New Art Hall Collection, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge
(Image credit: New Hall Art Collection and Murray Edwards College)

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Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, 1892, oil on canvas, 49½in by 39½in, by John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh.
(Image credit: National Galleries of Scotland /Bridgeman Images)

My Favourite Painting: Rachel Trevor-Morgan

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My Wife, Nude, Contemplating her Own Flesh Becoming Stairs, Three Vertebrae of a Column, Sky and Architecture, 1945, oil on wood, 24in by 25½in, by Salvador Dalí (1904–89), private collection. ©Salvador Dali, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, DACS 2022 / Bridgeman Images.
(Image credit: Bridgeman Images)

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Noli me Tangere, 1526–28, 30¼in by 37¾in, oil on oak panel, by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8–1543), Royal Collection.
(Image credit: Bridgeman Images)

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Showing at Tattersalls, about 1919, oil on canvas, 22¾in by 28in, by Robert Polhill Bevan (1865–1925).
(Image credit: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford / Bridgeman Images)

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Charlotte Mullins
Charlotte Mullins
Contributor

Charlotte Mullins is an art critic, writer and broadcaster. Her latest book, The Art Isles: A 15,000 year story of art in the British Isles, will be published by Yale University Press in October 2025.

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