Picturesque Views in England and Wales
and Continental Scenes
after Joseph Mallord William Turner
Research by Anne Matthews and Veronica McDonnell
Acc No See below
Artist Joseph M W Turner
Artist dates 1775-1851
Size Various
Medium Engravings
Date produced 1832-1838
Donor/s Unknown
Date donated Unknown
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Acc No 217
Lowestoft, Suffolk (W R Smith) 1837 Kidwielly Castle, South Wales (T Jeavons) 1837 Keswick Lake, Cumberland (W Radclyffe) 1837 Llangollen, North Wales (J T Willmore) 1837 Durham Cathedral (W Miller) 1836 Winander-mere, Westmorland (J T Willmore) 1837 Whitehaven, Cumberland (W R Smith) 1837 Crickieth Castle, Wales (S Fisher) 1837 Rochester, Stroud and Chatham Medway (J C Varrall) 1838 Acc No ? Carew Castle, Pembrokeshire (W Miller) 1834 Leicester Abbey, Leicestershire (W R Smith) 1834 Penmaen-mawr, Caenarvonshire (J T Willmore) 1834 Christ Church College, Oxford (J Redaway) 1834 Arundel Castle and Town, Sussex (T Jeavons) 1834 Llanberis Lake and Snowden, Wales (J T Willmore) 1834 Caenarvon Castle, Wales (W Radclyffe) 1835 Dudley, Worcestershire (R Wallis) 1835 Boston, Lincolnshire (T Jeavons) 1835 |
Acc No 219
Louth, Lincolnshire, (The Horse Fair) W Radclyffe) 1829 Great Yarmouth, Norfolk (W Miller) 1829 Stonehenge, Wiltshire (R Wallis) 1829 Hampton Court Palace (C Westwood) 1829 Devonport and Dockyard (T Jeavons) 1830 Dunstanborough Castle, Northumberland (R Brandard) 1830 Carisbrook Castle, Isle of Wight (C Westwood) 1830 Cowes, Isle of Wight (R Wallis) 1830 Alnwick Castle, Northumberland (J T Willmore) 1830 Acc No 216 A selection of Turners Continental Scenes – 20 (approximately postcard size) in 1930s frame |
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ARTIST
Joseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romanticist landscape painter. Although considered a controversial figure in his day, he is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. He was born, it is thought, on 23 April 1775 at 21 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, the son of William Turner (1745-1829), a barber and wig-maker and Mary, nee Marshall (1739-1804). William was born in Devon but moved to London to follow his own father’s trade and Mary came from a line of prosperous London butchers and shopkeepers. A sister, Mary Anne, was born in 1778 but died in 1783. Turner remained a Londoner and kept a Cockney accent all his life. His artistic talent was encouraged by his father and in December 1789 Turner entered the Royal Academy Schools, progressing to the Plaister Academy, drawing from casts of ancient sculpture, to the life class in 1792. He augmented his studies with other work experience, including assisting architects and painting scenery for the London stage, music and opera remaining a lifelong passion. Turner’s varied activities indicate wide interests as well as a need to fund his studies at the Academy. The flourishing market for landscape and antiquarian topography, whether watercolours for exhibition and sale or reproduction in prints and books, provided his first real income. Early trips visiting friends outside London alerted him to the value of sketching on the spot as a basis for studio and commercial work. From the mid-1790s he settled on the routine he maintained for much of his life: touring in summer and working in the studio in the winter months for the following year’s exhibitions, on commissions, or for the engraver. The first engravings after his topographical drawings appeared in the Copper-Plate Magazine (1794-98) and the Pocket Magazine (1795-6). Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1790, showing watercolours until 1796 when he sent his first oil, Fishermen at Sea. By this time prominent patrons were supporting his wider endeavours, many becoming friends as well as patrons, their country residences becoming homes from home for Turner. Elected Associate of the Royal Academy in 1799 and Academician in 1802, Turner was already prosperous in 1800, opening a gallery on the corner of Harley Street and Queen Anne Street in 1804, which could accommodate up to about thirty works. However, Turner’s dominance did not go unchallenged. At the Royal Academy he could be bumptious, pushy or rude, at times trading insults with colleagues, but his critics made little lasting impact. From 1806, encouraged by an artist friend, William Wells, he classified the history and practice of landscape art, from mountainous to marine and natural to ideal, in a series of original prints, the Liber Studiorum, which highlighted his own dominance of all these aspects. In 1817 Turner visited Holland and Belgium to see the battlefield of Waterloo and the Rhineland. His picture, The Field of Waterloo, was exhibited in 1818, his set of fifty Rhine views in watercolour and gouache being purchased by Walter Fawkes, an avid collector. In 1823 he finally obtained a longed-for royal commission, an immense picture of the Battle of Trafalgar for George IV. Meanwhile, in 1818, Turner had opened a seam of overtly literary topography, visiting Scotland to illustrate Walter Scott’s Picturesque Antiquities. Illustrations to Scott’s poetry, novels and Life of Napoleon, Byron, the banker-poet Samuel Rogers, Thomas Campbell and Thomas Moore as well as John Milton and the Bible, often designed as vignettes, - a form Turner made very much his own – followed in the coming years. Among living poets, Turner was fondest of Byron’s writing, borrowing more passages from Childe Harold as themes for pictures. Between 1819 and 1828 Turner visited Italy, travelling to Venice, Rome and Naples. On successive visits to France he explored the Loire in 1826 and Seine from 1821-32. In the intervening years Turner continued his indefatigable routine of touring, painting and working for publishers at home and on the continent. For six years from 1827 Turner travelled the length and breadth of England and Wales painting iconic scenes featuring ancient buildings, landscapes, coastal resorts and well-known landmarks. These paintings were faithfully engraved by a team of some nineteen artists, themselves very skilled, and the resulting prints were offered for sale to the common man who could not afford an original Turner painting. It was a business venture. He completed 100 watercolours and illustrations, 96 of which were engraved. The first complete volume of 60 plates was published in book form in 1831. His sketchbooks from those years are housed in Tate Britain. We are fortunate to have several of these prints in the Collection and these were displayed in the Turner and the Picturesque Exhibition held at the Fylde Gallery, Lytham between 22 June - 3 August 2017. There was an upsurge of work in the last decade of Turner’s working life. John Ruskin had become the standard bearer of a new generation of Turner admirers, now usually professional, middle class or newly rich. However, by 1845 his health was beginning to fail. In 1848, for the first time since 1824, Turner showed nothing at the Academy. His last exhibits were in 1849 and 1850. In 1846 Turner had moved with Mrs Booth, a widow, who was his landlady during his stays in Margate, to 6 Davis Place, overlooking the Thames at Chelsea. His health continued to decline and he died there on 19 December 1851. On 30 December Turner’s remains were interred in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral, close to Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Lawrence, according to his wish ‘to be buried among my Brothers in Art’. |
 Engraving attributed to W Holl the Younger by the British Museum (but possibly by his father)
Original self-portrait c1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775-1851
Oil paint on canvas
Support: 743 x 584 mm
Tate N00458
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
REFERENCES Adapted from: 1) Turner Biography compiled by the Lancashire Conservation Studios and available to read at the ‘Turner and the Picturesque‘ Exhibition held at the Booths Gallery, Lytham from 22 June to 3 August 2017 2) Friends of the Lytham St Annes Art Collection November Newsletter 2017 |
