Joseph Mallord William Turner

[from] Nos. 282–91 : Petworth Landscapes, c. 1828–30

THESE fall into two groups, plus the separate painting relating to the two versions of Chichester Canal (No. 282 [N05563]). The first group consists of the five works from the Turner Bequest now in the Tate Gallery (Nos. 283–7); the second of the four rather more finished pictures still at Petworth (Nos. 288–91). These latter works originally hung below full-length seventeenth-century portraits in the Grinling Gibbons panelled dining-room, and are more or less closely based on four of the Tate Gallery pictures, at least one of which seems originally to have hung in the place later occupied by one of the more finished pictures.

Although Turner had painted a view of Petworth House in 1810 (No. 113 [T03880]) and had sold a considerable number of pictures to Lord Egremont, he became a more frequent visitor to Petworth after the death of his father in 1829. In particular it is known that he stayed there from December 1830 to January 1831. Nearly all recent writers on Turner have followed Finberg in assuming that it was then that the landscapes were painted, or at least begun. On the other hand, Collins Baker dates them c. 1829–30, with the exception of the Brighton, which he assigns definitely to 1830. MacColl, following earlier National Gallery catalogues, dates the sketches for Petworth Park and Chichester Canal (Nos. 283 [N00559] and 285 [N00560]) to 1829. Thornbury dates the Petworth Park even earlier, 1828.

In fact, the first known reference to the landscapes occurs in a letter from Thomas Creevey to Miss Ord of 18 August 1828, giving an account of his visit to Petworth on 16–17 August. After describing ‘the sixty foot dining room’ with its full-length portraits, he goes on, ‘Immense as these pictures are with all their garniture there are still panels to spare, and as he [Lord Egremont] always has artists ready in the house, in one of these compartments, you have Petworth Park by Turner, in another Lord Egremont taking a walk with nine dogs, that are his constant companions, by the same artist ...’ The second of the pictures mentioned must be the Tate Gallery's Petworth Park: Tillington Church in the Distance (No. 283 [N00559]), the dogs in which are omitted from the more finished version at Petworth (No. 288 [T03883]). The other picture is presumably the Tate's Lake, Petworth, Sunset (No. 284 [N02701]), unless the more finished version (No. 289 [T03884]) was already in situ.

John Gage has recently discovered that Turner was at Petworth in August 1827, and the landscapes may have been begun then. On the other hand, Gage has also suggested that the Tate Gallery pictures were begun in London and rejected because they turned out to be too large (1969, p. 260 n. 91), but Creevey's report makes this highly unlikely unless the pictures he saw were somehow only temporarily superimposed on the panels. In any case, the Tate pictures are not consistently larger than the final versions. It may therefore be that Lord Egremont, whose collection had hitherto been confined to Turner's earlier style, found the first set of pictures too sketchy in style; the history of Palestrina (No. 295 [N06283]) suggests another instance of Lord Egremont failing to appreciate Turner's mature work.

That Turner painted some if not all of the Petworth landscapes in the studio specially provided for him in the house is suggested by an anecdote in George Jones' manuscript Recollections of Sir Francis Chantrey, written in 1849: ‘When Turner painted a series of landscapes at Petworth, for the dining-room, he worked with his door locked against everybody but the master of the house. Chantrey was there at the time, and determined to see what Turner was doing; he imitated Lord Egremont's peculiar step, and the two distinct raps on the door by which his lordship was accustomed to announce himself: and the key being immediately turned, he slipped into the room before the artist could shut him out, which joke was mutually enjoyed by the two attached friends’ (reprinted in Finberg 1961, p. 325).

Lit. Thornbury 1862, i, p. 306; 1877, p. 439; Collins Baker 1920, pp. 124–5; MacColl 1920, p. 27; John Gore (ed.), Creevey's life and Times: A Further Selection from the Correspondence of Thomas Creevey 1934, p. 277; John Gore (ed.), Creevey 1948, p. 293; Finberg 1961, p. 325; Herrmann 1975, pp. 34, 231–2; Joll 1977, pp. 374–9; Young-blood 1983, p. 16.

287. [N02065] A Ship Aground c. 1828

THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (2065)

Canvas, 27 1/2 × 53 1/2 (70 × 136)

Coll. Turner Bequest 1856 (? one of 236 to 238, ‘Roll of 3 separate Canvasses Petworth Chain Pier and another’, no dimensions given); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1906.

Exh. Amsterdam, Berne, Paris, Brussels, Liege (31), Venice and Rome (35) 1947–8; R.A. 1974–5 (329, repr.).

Lit. MacColl 1920, p. 34; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, p. 46, pl. 88; Gage 1969, p. 260 n. 91; Joll 1977, p. 379.

The composition was not used for the more finished pictures at Petworth but was developed in two paintings exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1831, Fort Vimieux (No. 341) and to a lesser extent Life-Boat and Manby Apparatus (No. 336). See under No. 290 [T03885] for a suggestion that this subject may have been painted as a possible substitute for Chichester Canal.

Published in:
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984