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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Petworth House: Fire-Light and Lamp-Light, Possibly in the White Library 1827

Petworth House: Fire–Light and Lamp–Light, Possibly in the White Library 1827
D22703
Turner Bequest CCXLIV 41
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 139 x 193 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCXLIV 41’ 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 suggestion of structures that could be bookcases, as well as the sense of a post-dinner social space, are suggestive of Petworth’s White Library; for more information about Turner’s numerous studies of this room, see the entry for Tate D22678 (Turner Bequest CCXLIV 16). The depiction of lamplight, with the foreground figures dramatically illuminated, makes this study similar in atmosphere to Tate D22688 (Turner Bequest CCXLIV 26), another view of the room.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions: inscribed in pencil ‘16 a’ centre; stamped in black ‘CCXLIV 41’ bottom left; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram bottom left.

Elizabeth Jacklin
February 2019

How to cite

Elizabeth Jacklin, ‘Petworth House: Fire–Light and Lamp–Light, Possibly in the White Library 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-fire-light-and-lamp-light-possibly-in-the-white-library-r1209133, accessed 25 July 2025.