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

This moonlight study, with its limited colour palette and horizontal slices of water and sky, seems to anticipate the nocturne paintings of Joseph Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) more than most studies in the Turner Bequest. Whistler might perhaps have seen it during its time on display in the National Gallery during the latter part of the nineteenth century.

The sheet has previously been connected to the Moselle River, one of the other locations Turner made colour studies of on blue paper, but was identified as a view of one of Petworth’s two lakes in 1989.1 The landscape shares features with other lake views catalogued in this section; see, for example, D24799 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 234) and D24635 (Turner Bequest CCLXI 70). These include the Upperton Monument, a distinctive feature of Petworth Park omitted here, although the viewpoint otherwise suggests it should be present: Turner also chose to leave the structure out of another study catalogued in this section (Tate D22665; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 3).2

This study well demonstrates Turner’s overriding concern in terms of the present grouping of colour studies of Petworth Park: capturing different effects of light. This is most obviously revealed by the many sunset studies, but in this sheet it is luminous silvery moonlight that attracts his interest. Another study in the present grouping saw him depict a windmill against a moonlit backdrop (Tate D22723; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 61), but in that case the connection to Petworth’s specific topography is less clear.

This is one of a large group of separate studies, most of which were made in gouache 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.

Technical notes:

There is a tear in the upper right of the sheet, which has been repaired.

Verso:

Blank, save for inscriptions: inscribed in pencil ‘35’ upper left, ‘15 | [?]L’ near centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCXX X’ bottom left.