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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Farnley Hall and Yorkshire c.1808-24 > Farnley Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Interior of the Library, Farnley Hall 1818

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Interior of the Library, Farnley Hall’ 1818
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 15 Verso:
The Interior of the Library, Farnley Hall 1818
D12021
Turner Bequest CLIII 15a
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 185 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil with colour notes; ‘black’, ‘red’ of a cabinet to the left, and ‘w’ on the Chinese porcelain on the table
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is the left half of a double-page spread continued on D12022; Turner Bequest CLIII 16, opposite, and further right on D12023; Turner Bequest CLIII 17, following, recording the north, east and south walls of the Georgian library at Farnley Hall, the seat of Turner’s friend and patron Walter Fawkes. This new library was in the new part of the house added by the architect John Carr of York in 1790. The doorway to the left leads to the drawing room, and through it can just be seen a harp. On the left page are details of two women seated at a small table, possibly playing chess, and a study of the ceiling roundel above. On the right are further details of Chinese porcelain vases clustered on a table and a picture, seemingly a portrait. No finished watercolour of this composition is recorded but an entry in the list on Tate D12013; Turner Bequest CLIII 11a of the present sketchbook, ‘18 Library’, indicates at least the intention to produce something.

David Hill
June 2009

Revised by David Blayney Brown
June 2013

How to cite

David Hill, ‘The Interior of the Library, Farnley Hall 1818 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2009, revised by David Blayney Brown, June 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-interior-of-the-library-farnley-hall-r1146654, accessed 23 March 2026.