Liber Studiorum (1806-1819)
During the first few years of the nineteenth century, Turner undertook an ambitious set of seventy prints intended for wide dissemination, which became known as the Liber Studiorum [Book of Studies ]. These were loosely based on the idea of Claude Lorrain's (c.1604/5-1682) Liber Veritatis [Book of Truth]. Claude's book, a record of his own compositions, was owned by the Duke of Devonshire during Turner's lifetime, but it is now in the British Museum. Turner's Liber Studiorum was a personal manifesto of his ambitions for landscape art, categorised into six types: Pastoral, Marine, Mountainous, Historical, Architectural, and E.P. (Elevated or Epic Pastoral), the latter derived from Claude. The prints were completed between 1807 and 1819 in fourteen groups of five. The prints were intended for wide dissemination, and Turner was heavily involved in every step of their creation, even etching the preliminary design into the plates himself - unusual for an artist, especially one as busy as Turner - before turning them over to an engraver for completion and printing. By 1819 the project was faltering, and the total number of plates fell short of the 100 Turner had at first envisaged.