# The Fifth Plague of Egypt, plate 16 from Liber Studiorum

- By: Joseph Mallord William Turner (Engraved by Charles Turner (English, 1773-1857))
- Date: published June 10, 1808
- Medium: Mezzotint and etching in brown on ivory wove paper
- Classification: Print
- Dimensions: Image: 18 × 25.8 cm (7 1/8 × 10 3/16 in.); Plate: 20.8 × 28.8 cm (8 3/16 × 11 3/8 in.); Sheet: 29.2 × 42.6 cm (11 1/2 × 16 13/16 in.)
- Culture: England
- Credit line: The Joseph Brooks Fair Collection
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/71664)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/5ba05c1b-0078-7ea0-8b8b-ba317000e67f/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

J. M. W. Turner’s paintings epitomized the sublime, a sense of awe-inspiring beauty beyond simple loveliness. His evocative etching and mezzotint print series, the Liber Studiorum (1807–19), was just as influential. Printed in sepia lines and tonal areas evoking Old Master drawing ink and modeling, Turner’s series of 71 prints is an extended ode to the landscape. The letters above each work designate the subject type, including architectural (A), pastoral (P) and elevated pastoral (EP), and historical (H), marine (M), and mountainous (M). Turner’s exhaustive categories inspired John Constable to produce a further-specialized mezzotint series of 22 English landscapes.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0