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

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.

At the time of Turner’s visit to Petworth, the Somerset Room was used as an anteroom to the adjacent Square Dining Room.1 Using the 1837 inventory of the house, Christopher Rowell determined that the extensive collection of mahogany dining tables was stored dismantled in the Somerset Room when not in use in the Square Dining Room; although the dismantled furniture is not visible from Turner’s viewpoint of the Somerset Room, this seems to explain why a dining table cannot be seen in the room next door.2

This is Turner’s only colour study of the Somerset Room, and much of the view is in fact concerned with the sightline through to the Square Dining Room and Grand Staircase beyond. The area around the doorway is shown in some detail, though, with George Romney’s painting of the Egremont family (Petworth collection) seen on the left, above the fireplace.3 The figure wearing red with a bow and arrow on the right of the canvas is identifiable as Romney’s depiction of Lord Egremont’s son, George.4 The other paintings are not readily identifiable with those associated with the Somerset Room at the time of the 1837 inventory, made a decade after Turner’s visit, or indeed with the collection that remains in the house more broadly. However, Ian Warrell noted that the large painting seen through the doorway, in the Square Dining Room, is Joshua Reynolds’s large picture Macbeth and the Witches, which remains at Petworth today.5 The painting is shown more clearly in a study of the Square Dining Room’s south wall also catalogued in this section (Tate D22770; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 108).

Rowell noted that both the Somerset Room and the Square Dining Room were painted white;6 this is indicated in the present colour study by the addition of white gouache highlights, but Turner primarily allowed the blue of the paper to form the backdrop for his lively depiction of the features and furnishings of the two rooms. The golden yellow of the numerous gilt frames and the warm colour of the floor are both shown to elegant effect against the blue, with dashes of red within the framed pictures and furniture adding vibrancy; while many of the Petworth interiors are evening scenes lit by lamp and firelight, this study reflects sunny natural light pouring into the space from the large sash windows that are here out of view.