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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner Petworth House: Two Ladies Sitting by the Fire, Probably in the White Library 1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Petworth House: Two Ladies Sitting by the Fire, Probably in the White Library’ 1827
Petworth House: Two Ladies Sitting by the Fire, Probably in the White Library 1827
D22740
Turner Bequest CCXLIV 78
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 137 x 185 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCXLIV 78’ 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 is thought to be 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). While the room’s interior is only indistinctly rendered in this sketch, the White Library is the likeliest setting for this study of two ladies sat close to a fireplace. Like most of the figures populating Turner’s Petworth sketches, the women are only very loosely indicated. Their stature, however, is expressive, as if, perhaps, they are both captured in the moment of looking up to greet the artist. The red dress of the figure on the right presents a vibrant shock of colour against Turner’s blue paper ground.
1
Butlin, Luther and Warrell 1989, pp.141, 142, 171.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions: inscribed in pencil ‘30 | a’ near centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCXLIV 78’ bottom left.

Elizabeth Jacklin
February 2019

How to cite

Elizabeth Jacklin, ‘Petworth House: Two Ladies Sitting by the Fire, 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-two-ladies-sitting-by-the-fire-probably-in-the-white-library-r1209149, accessed 23 June 2025.