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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner Petworth House: Figures in the White Library, ?Including Lord Egremont 1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Petworth House: Figures in the White Library, ?Including Lord Egremont’ 1827
Petworth House: Figures in the White Library, ?Including Lord Egremont 1827
D22749
Turner Bequest CCXLIV 87
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 142 x 188 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCXLIV 87’ bottom right
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom 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 setting for this scene has been identified as Petworth’s White Library,1 a well-used drawing room in which guests gathered both before and after dinner; for more information about Turner’s numerous studies of this room, see the entry for Tate D22678 (Turner Bequest CCXLIV 16). This study, like one other catalogued in this section (D22693; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 31), has been said to be a portrayal of Lord Egremont himself sat among his guests.2 This seems very possible; however, as is the case for the vast majority of Turner’s Petworth colour studies, the figures are insufficiently detailed to allow for definite identification.
1
Butlin, Luther and Warrell 1989, pp.142, 143.
2
Ibid, pp.142, 143; Loukes 2013, p.16.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions: inscribed in pencil ‘32 a’ centre; stamped in black ‘CCXLIV 87’ bottom left; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram bottom left.

Elizabeth Jacklin
February 2019

How to cite

Elizabeth Jacklin, ‘Petworth House: Figures in the White Library, ?Including Lord Egremont 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/petworth-house-figures-in-the-white-library-including-lord-egremont-r1209159, accessed 10 September 2025.