Joseph Mallord William Turner

Devoid of any intervention by Turner, this is the visiting card of Charles Deane (1794–1874), a London landscape painter who exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1815 and 1851, and at the British Institution. Subjects in common with Turner’s included the River Thames, the Bristol area, the Netherlands and the Rivers Rhine and the Mosel;1 his large 1821 painting Waterloo Bridge and the Lambeth Waterfront from Westminster Stairs, exhibited at the British Institution the following year, is in the Museum of London. The extent of any personal acquaintance with Turner is unknown.

Deane gave 8 Blandford Place as his residence when exhibiting at the Royal Academy from 1822 onwards.2 The 1827 Greenwood’s Map of London shows the address on the outskirts of central London, as a short section of the west side of what is now Park Road as it runs down to Baker Street, just south-west of Sussex Place on the fringes of Regent’s Park and less than a mile north-west of Turner’s Queen Anne Street house and gallery off Harley Street. The other two sides of the triangular block are now Gloucester Place and Ivor Place (then Upper Gloucester Place and Upper Park Place).

The recto is Tate D34936 (Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 437), which Turner used for a drawing; the text on this side is inverted relative to it. D34936 is one of ten small studies on nine such cards or blanks (Tate D34929–D34939; Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 431–439). For general comments and dating, see under D34929.

Compare Tate D34932 (Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 434), one of Turner’s own printed cards.