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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Petworth House: The White Library, with Bookshelves and a Rococo Pier-Glass, and Several Figures 1827

Petworth House: The White Library, with Bookshelves and a Rococo Pier–Glass, and Several Figures 1827
D22686
Turner Bequest CCXLIV 24
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 139 x 194 mm
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 Petworth’s White Library, 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). The present study captures the room’s role as a hub for social interaction at Petworth, with the white bookshelves and glinting Rococo mirror forming a backdrop for a large group of seated figures, each of whom is only very loosely indicated by Turner with a combination of pale gouache and dark watercolour strokes.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions: inscribed in pencil ‘9 | c’ near centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCXLIV 24’.

Elizabeth Jacklin
February 2019

How to cite

Elizabeth Jacklin, ‘Petworth House: The White Library, with Bookshelves and a Rococo Pier–Glass, and Several Figures 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-the-white-library-with-bookshelves-and-a-rococo-pier-glass-and-several-r1209119, accessed 13 May 2025.