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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner Petworth House: Portrait of a Young Lady Playing the Fortepiano, Probably in the White Library 1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Petworth House: Portrait of a Young Lady Playing the Fortepiano, Probably in the White Library’ 1827
Petworth House: Portrait of a Young Lady Playing the Fortepiano, Probably in the White Library 1827
D22701
Turner Bequest CCXLIV 39
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 194 x 140 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCXLIV 39’, top right in relation to image
Blind stamped with 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 setting for this portrait is very likely Petworth’s White Library, the 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). The room contained a pianoforte, as seen in some of Turner’s other studies of the room (see Tate D22699; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 37).
This delicate study is unusual in that it presents a relatively detailed portrait of one of Lord Egremont’s guests: while Turner’s colour studies of the house are often populated with people, they tend to be shown indistinctly, without facial details. As such, it isn’t possible to link the young woman shown here with the many female figures seen in the other studies with any certainty. While Christopher Rowell has suggested that the woman playing the pianoforte in D22699 could be Lord Egremont’s daughter, Charlotte King (1795–1870)1 - which certainly seems possible - the woman in the present study is considerably fairer. Comparison with John Lucas’s portrait (National Trust, Petworth House), also suggests that Charlotte King had a more mature-looking face than the young woman seen here (King would have been thirty-two in 1827) and significantly darker colouring.
Although it portrays a different sitter, the art historian Andrew Wilton has compared this study to Turner’s oil painting A Lady in Van Dyck Costume (Tate N05511), which was very likely inspired by the Van Dyck portraits at Petworth2; for more information about the Van Dyck paintings in the collection, see the entry for Tate D22676 (Turner Bequest CCXLIV 14).3 While the present sketch is far less obviously engaged with the example of Van Dyck in terms of composition and colour palette, the comparison remains interesting given that the only other Petworth colour study with the appearance of a portrait is Turner’s gouache copy of one of the Van Dyck pictures (Tate D22762; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 100).
1
Rowell, Warrell and Brown 2002, pp.24, 111.
2
Wilton 2006, pp.128, 154 note 50.
3
Ibid, pp.128, 154 note 50.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions: inscribed in pencil ‘15 | a’ near centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCXLIV 39’ bottom left.

Elizabeth Jacklin
February 2019

How to cite

Elizabeth Jacklin, ‘Petworth House: Portrait of a Young Lady Playing the Fortepiano, Probably 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-portrait-of-a-young-lady-playing-the-fortepiano-probably-in-the-white-r1209131, accessed 05 May 2025.