Joseph Mallord William Turner East Cowes Castle: The Library, with a Harp Recital 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
East Cowes Castle: The Library, with a Harp Recital
1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
East Cowes Castle: The Library, with a Harp Recital 1827
D22705
Turner Bequest CCXLIV 43
Turner Bequest CCXLIV 43
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 140 x 189 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXLIV 43’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXLIV 43’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1938
[Display of Watercolours], National Gallery, London, December 1938–September 1939 (no catalogue, but numbered 13, as one of ‘Three Interiors at Petworth’).
1947
Turner 1775–1851: Tentoonstelling in het Stedelijk Museum te Amsterdam georganiseerd door de Tate Gallery voor de British Council, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1947 (51, among ‘Interieurs van Petworth House’, c.1830–1).
1947
William Turner 1775–1851: Die Ausstellung wurde von der Tate Gallery für den British Council organisiert, Berner Kunstmuseum, Bern, December 1947–February 1948 (51 [?c], as one of three ‘Intériurs aus Petworth House, 1830–1).
1948
Turner 1775–1851: Exposition de peintures organisée par la Tate Gallery pour le British Council, Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, ?March 1948 (51c, reproduced, as one of three ‘Scenes d’intérieur à Petworth House’, c.1830–1).
1948
Turner 1775–1851: Tentoonstelling van schilderijen ingericht door de Tate Gallery voor The British Council in het Ministerie van Openbaar Onderwijs van Belgie, Palais voor Schone Kunst, Brussels and Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Liège, March–April 1948 (51 [?c], as one of three ‘Interieurs van Petworth House’, c.1830–1).
1951
The Turner Collection from Petworth, Tate Gallery, London, May–July 1951 (frame no.4, as ‘A Little Music: Evening’).
1951
Aquarelle aus dem Turner-Nachlass im Britischen Museum veranstaltet vom British Council, Düsseldorf, Wiesbaden, Mannheim, Munich, Nuremberg: September or October 1950–March 1951, and September 1951–April 1952 (11c, reproduced, among ‘Interieur-Szenen in Petworth House’, as ‘Ein Musikabend’, c.1830–1).
1961
J.W.M. [sic] Turner 1775–1851: Watercolours: On Loan to the National Gallery of Victoria on the Occasion of its Centenary from the Turner Bequest by Courtesy of the Trustees and Director of the British Museum, London, with the Assistance of the British Council, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, September–October 1961, National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, October–November (15c, reproduced, as ‘A Musical Evening’).
1963
J.M.W. Turner, Bridgestone Gallery, Tokyo, September–October 1963, Fine Arts Museum, Osaska, November (17c, reproduced, as ‘A musical evening’).
1964
Turner 1775–1851: Watercolours from the British Museum, London, Presented in Association with the British Council, City Hall Art Gallery, Hong Kong, January 1964 (17c, as ‘A musical evening’).
1974
Turner 1775–1851, Royal Academy, London, November 1974–March 1975 (353, as ‘Petworth: Interior with Several Figures listening to a Woman in Black playing the Harp’ ?1828).
1983
Turner and the Human Figure: Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Loaned by the British Museum, Tate Gallery, London, December 1983–July 1984 (no catalogue, as ‘A Little Music; Evening’).
2009
Turner / Rothko, Tate Britain, London, March–July 2009 (no catalogue, as ‘?East Cowes Castle: Music in the Library’).
References
1830
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.745, CCXLIV 43, as ‘A little music; evening’, c.1830.
1957
Ann Lapraik Livermore, ‘Turner and Music’, Music and Letters, vol.38, no.2, April 1957, p.174, as a Petworth subject, 1830.
1828
Andrew Wilton, Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London 1975, p.88 under no.130, as a Petworth subject, ?1828.
1977
Andrew Wilton, Turner Watercolors: An Exhibition of Works Loaned by The Trustees of the British Museum, exhibition catalogue, Cleveland Museum of Art 1977, p.52, as a Petworth subject.
1989
Ian Warrell in Martin Butlin, Mollie Luther and Warrell, Turner at Petworth: Painter and Patron, London 1989, p.148, pl.134 (colour), as ‘?East Cowes Castle: music in the library’.
1990
Martin Butlin, Mollie Luther and Ian Warrell, Turner at Petworth: Painter and Patron, London 1989, Turner: Les Années Egremont: Chefs d’oeuvre inédits, trans. Tamara Préaud, Paris 1990, pl.134 (colour).
This is among dozens of blue paper studies made in and around East Cowes Castle, presumably during the same visit. For more on the various aspects of the house (demolished in about 1950), and its lost grounds as depicted by Turner, see the Introduction to this subsection. The present colour study was traditionally associated with Turner’s 1827 stay at Petworth in Sussex, after his Isle of Wight visit, where he produced a series similar in technique,1 addressed elsewhere in this catalogue.
There are a few drawings now identified as East Cowes interiors (see also Tate D20851, D20852, D22690, D22694, D22761; Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 48, 49, CCXLIV 28, 32, 99). This and D22690 apparently show the library with a woman in black seated with a harp, playing to a group of seated men and women; ink drawings of the room are D20851 and D20852.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed by John Ruskin in ink ‘239 | O’ bottom right; inscribed in pencil ‘16c’ right of centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram above ‘CCXLIV – 43’ bottom left.
Ruskin’s number signifies that the sheet was in one of the parcels of unmounted sketches within the Turner Bequest CCXLIV grouping. Those marked with this particular number were described by him as ‘Colour on grey. Petworth. Worse’; as Finberg notes, this is in relation to those marked ‘238 | O’, described as ‘Inferior’.1
Matthew Imms
November 2015
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘East Cowes Castle: The Library, with a Harp Recital 1827 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www