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.

Turner makes full use of the opaque quality of gouache here, with white and goldish brown used to capture the grandeur of the interior’s ivory and gilt panelling, and short strokes of colour used to suggest the texture of the rug in the foreground. The French Rococo style of Petworth’s White and Gold Room, also known by visitors as the ‘breakfast room’,1 dates back to the mid-eighteenth-century; Christopher Rowell believes the room was probably designed under the direction of Matthew Brettingham the Elder (1699–1769), the second Earl of Egremont’s architect.2 Another depiction of the room catalogued in the present grouping (Tate D22692; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 30) shows a man standing at a table. One further gouache believed to show the room is known as ‘Spilt Milk’ due to its association with an incident during which Turner apparently spilt milk over the dress of Mrs Hasler, Lord Egremont’s niece: this sheet is also dated to 1827 (Petworth House collection).3

Turner played sufficiently close attention to the Van Dyck portraits on the walls, shown resplendent in their matching seventeenth-century carved and gilt frames, to allow for their individual identification. As others have noted, the study shows three from a set of five portraits in the Petworth collection, with Anne Carr, Countess of Bedford in the centre, Dorothy Percy, Countess of Leicester to the right and Dorothy Sidney, Countess of Sunderland above the over mantel mirror.4 Turner also made a detailed gouache copy of another portrait in the group, Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle (see the entry for Tate D22762; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 100). These depictions indicate the importance Turner placed on these paintings, which were regarded by his contemporary Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786–1846) as ‘the finest Vandykes in the world!’,5 demonstrating the importance of Petworth to Turner and his contemporaries in terms of artistic study as well as patronage. Notably, the Van Dyck portraits in this room have also been related to two oil paintings by Turner: for more information, see the entry for D22762.

Turner also indicated two landscape format paintings on the wall beneath the first two portraits: Rowell suggests these are those listed in the same positions in the 1837 inventory of the room’s contents: Benjamin West’s Triumph of Death and Vanvitelli’s Port of Naples.6

Verso:

Blank, save for inscriptions: stamped in black ‘CCXLIV 14’ bottom left; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram bottom left.