Apart, possibly, from the lost 'Battle of the Nile, exhibited the previous year and about which nothing is known, this is Turner's first real essay in the Grand Manner, an Old Testament scene of death and destruction painted in the manner of Poussin. In the Royal Academy catalogue Turner quoted the following lines from Exodus IX, 23:

And Moses stretched forth his hands towards heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along the ground.

In fact the Plague shown is the seventh, which suggests that Turner was interested less in the text itself than in its possibilities for dramatic treatment and the chance of working in the manner of the artist who had done more than any other to raise landscape to the status enjoyed in the academic hierarchy by pictures of serious subjects. The picture was bought for 150 guineas by William Beckford, owner of the Altieri Claudes and builder of Fonthill Abbey, five watercolour views of which by Turner were exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year (see No.39).

There is a slight study among sketches of North Wales in the 'Dolbadern' sketchbook (T.B.XLVI-79), suggesting that, as in the case of 'Hannibal crossing the Alps' (No.88), Turner may have been partly inspired to paint a scene set in a distant place and time by a climatic experience in the British Isles. There is also a possible study for the standing man with arms raised in supplication on the right (could this be intended to be Moses?) in the 'Studies for Pictures' sketchbook (T.B.LXIX-22), and a nude study in the 'Calais Pier' sketchbook (see No.89).

The composition, somewhat condensed and altered, was engraved for the Liber Studiorum, R. 16, still as ‘The

Fifth Plague of Egypt', published 10 June 1808 (No. 102). Meanwhile, in 1802, Turner had exhibited another Plague picture at the Royal Academy, this time correctly identified as ‘The Tenth Plague of Egypt' (Tate Gallery 470).