Joseph Mallord William Turner

Provenance:
...
Charles Stokes
Bequeathed to Mary Constance Clarke 1853
...
Henry Vaughan by 1878

Engraved:
Etching and mezzotint by Turner and J.C. Easling, untitled, published Turner, 23 May 1812 (see main catalogue entry)

Turner’s design for the frontispiece to the Liber Studiorum incorporates aspects of all the subject categories the series encompassed, as set out on the wrappers in which each part was issued: ‘landscape compositions, viz. historical, mountainous, pastoral, marine, and architectural’.1 Thornbury summed up its purpose: ‘As an overture contains hints of all there will be in an opera, so does this title-page foretell much that follows.’2 However, Turner would not necessarily have considered the design at the outset, as it was not issued until some five years into the Liber project (see publication details below), allowing him to include details retrospectively referencing specific elements from the published plates.

The pictorial space is logical, but imaginary. As Gillian Forrester notes, the composition is in a long tradition of illustrated frontispieces bringing together various elements relevant to the text in a decorative or symbolic design (which Turner was to follow again to introduce his set of historical Fairfaxiana watercolour illustrations for Walter Fawkes).3 Undergrowth and water plants embody the rustic ‘Pastoral’ category. Similar lily pads and bulrushes appear in Turner’s 1819 vignette watercolour for the cover of Fawkes’s copy of his collection catalogue (private collection;4 see also etching by F.C. Lewis: Tate T06031); they have been interpreted in that context as visual puns on the palettes and brushes which also appear, as ‘an almost competitive dialogue between Nature and Art’.5 In the present design there are similar analogies between the natural plant forms and their classical architectural equivalents.

The blank Gothic arcade evokes Rivaux Abbey (for drawing see Tate D09154; Turner Bequest CXVII Z) and the Romanesque, Holy Island Cathedral (Tate D08115; Turner Bequest CXVI N); together they establish the ‘Architectural’ framework. Everyday objects are mingled with symbols; what appear to be a basket of eggs and a pie, barrels and a spade lie below the central picture. The fish in the foreground do not appear elsewhere in the Liber, though they echo such still life elements in a number of Turner’s beach scenes such as Sun Rising through Vapour; Fishermen Cleaning and Selling Fish, exhibited in 1807 (National Gallery, London);6 the oars and sail-like banners beside them (on which the Liber engravers were listed in the subsequent print) also evoke the ‘Marine’.