J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Variation on Washington Allston's Painting 'Jacob's Dream', at Petworth House c.1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Variation on Washington Allston's Painting 'Jacob's Dream', at Petworth House’ c.1827
A Variation on Washington Allston’s Painting ‘Jacob’s Dream’, at Petworth House c.1827
D40103
Turner Bequest CCLIX 263a
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 142 x 192 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCLIX–263a’ bottom right
Blind stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram lower right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is one of a large group of separate studies, most of which were made in gouache and watercolour on blue paper, associated with a visit to Petworth House in West Sussex, the home of the third Earl of Egremont. For more information, see the Introduction to this section.
The Turner scholar Ian Warrell first noted this study’s connection to Petworth, demonstrating that it appears to rework the composition of Jacob’s Dream by the American artist Washington Allston (1779–1843), a painting acquired by Lord Egremont in 1819.1 Allston’s framed picture is visible in one of Turner’s other studies, where it is seen hanging on the north wall of Petworth’s Old Library, a room used as a studio by artists staying in the house (see Tate D22765; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 103). The painting was evidently of some interest to Turner, who also reworked the composition in an oil painting of c.1830, for which the present sheet might function as a preparatory study, The Vision of Jacob’s Ladder (?) (Tate N05507). Although the connection between Turner’s ideas for a Jacob composition and the Allston painting in Lord Egremont’s collection seems confirmed by this copy made on one of the blue paper sheets he used at Petworth, both Allston’s interpretation of the subjects and Turner’s reworking are quite Rembrandtesque, and John Gage has also noted the very popular picture version of the subject in the Dulwich Picture Gallery, which was at this time believed to be by Rembrandt.2
Turner’s colour palette in the study both echoes and embellishes that used by Allston, the heavy use of light and shade common to both artists, but the vibrant touches of red and blue in the foreground figures appearing to be Turner’s own additions; these are fitting with the palette used in many of the other Petworth watercolour and gouache studies made on blue paper.
1
Butlin Luther and Warrell 1989, pp.145, 146, 196.
2
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, no.435. 
Technical notes:
There is some discolouration, presumably due to previous exposure in window mount during the drawing’s time as part of the ‘Third Loan Collection’ (see the ‘Exhibited’ section above).
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions: inscribed in pencil ‘CCLIX 263 a’ bottom centre.

Elizabeth Jacklin
February 2019

How to cite

Elizabeth Jacklin, ‘A Variation on Washington Allston’s Painting ‘Jacob’s Dream’, at Petworth House c.1827’, catalogue entry, February 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2024, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/a-variation-on-washington-allstons-painting-jacobs-dream-at-petworth-house-r1209176, accessed 29 June 2025.