Joseph Mallord William Turner Fire at the Grand Storehouse of the Tower of London 1841
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
Fire at the Grand Storehouse of the Tower of London
1841
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Fire at the Grand Storehouse of the Tower of London 1841
D27852
Turner Bequest CCLXXXIII 7
Turner Bequest CCLXXXIII 7
Watercolour on white wove paper, 235 x 325 mm
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘7’ top right, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXXIII – 7’ bottom right
Inscribed in pencil ‘3’ bottom left
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘7’ top right, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXXIII – 7’ bottom right
Inscribed in pencil ‘3’ bottom left
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1974
Turner 1775–1851, Royal Academy, London, November 1974–March 1975 (460, as ‘The Burning of the Houses of Parliament’, 1834).
1976
J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: Akvareller og Tegninger fra British Museum, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, February–May 1976 (72, as ‘The Burning of the Houses of Parliament’, 1834, reproduced).
1976
William Turner und die Landschaft seiner Zeit, Hamburger Kunsthalle, May–July 1976 (126, as ‘Der Brand des Parlaments’, 1834, reproduced).
1977
Turner Watercolors: An Exhibition of Works Loaned by The Trustees of the British Museum, International Exhibitions Foundation tour, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, September–November 1977, Detroit Institute of Arts, December 1977–February 1978, Philadelphia Museum of Art, March–April 1978 (48, as ‘Study of the Burning of the Houses of Parliament’, 1834, reproduced upside down).
1997
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna, March–June 1997 (84, as ‘The Burning of the Houses of Parliament’, 1834, reproduced in colour).
1997
J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: A Tate Gallery Collection Exhibition, Yokohama Museum of Art, June–August 1997, Fukuoka Art Museum, September–October 1997, Nagoya City Art Museum, October–December 1997 (75, as ‘The Burning of the Houses of Parliament’, 1834, reproduced in colour).
2004
Turner Whistler Monet, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, June–September 2004, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, October–January 2005, Tate Britain, London, February–May 2005 (not in catalogue, shown in London only).
2007
J.M.W. Turner, National Gallery of Art, Washington, October 2007–January 2008, Dallas Museum of Art, February–May 2008, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, June–September 2008 (125, as ‘The Burning of the Houses of Parliament’, 1834, reproduced in colour).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.909, CCLXXXIII 7 (as ‘Do. do. do.’, i.e. ditto, Burning of the Houses of Parliament, from the river, as for D27846 (Turner Bequest CCLXXXIII 1). 1834).
1974
Martin Butlin, Andrew Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.129 no.460, as ‘The Burning of the Houses of Parliament’ 1834.
1975
Gerald Wilkinson, Turner’s Colour Sketches 1820–34, London 1975, reproduced in colour, p.79, as a Houses of Parliament subject 1834.
1976
Werner Hofmann, Andrew Wilton, Siegmar Hosten and others, William Turner und die Landschaft seiner Zeit, exhibition catalogue, Hamburger Kunsthalle 1976, p.163 no.126, as ‘Der Brand des Parlaments’ 1834, reproduced.
1976
David Loshak and Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: Akvareller og Tegninger fra British Museum, exhibition catalogue, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen 1976, p.66 no.72, as ‘The Burning of the Houses of Parliament’ 1834, reproduced, p.69.
1977
Andrew Wilton, Turner Watercolors: An Exhibition of Works Loaned by The Trustees of the British Museum, exhibition catalogue, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio 1977, p.67 no.48, as ‘Study of the Burning of the Houses of Parliament’ 1834, reproduced upside down.
1984
Katherine Solender, Dreadful Fire! Burning of the Houses of Parliament, exhibition catalogue, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio 1984, p.50, fig.42, as ‘Burning of the Houses of Parliament’. c.1834.
1986
Richard Dorment, British Painting in the Philadelphia Museum: From the Seventeenth through the Nineteenth Century, Philadelphia 1986, pp.400, 401, 405 under no.4, fig.III.6, as a Parliament study 1834.
1997
David Blayney Brown in Brown, Klaus Albrecht Schröder, Evelyn Benesch and others, Joseph Mallord William Turner, exhibition catalogue, Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna 1997, p.280 no.84, as ‘The Burning of the Houses of Parliament’ 1834, reproduced in colour.
1997
David B[layney] Brown, Yasuhide Shimbata and Hideko Numata, J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: A Tate Gallery Collection Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, Yokohama Museum of Art 1997, p.138 no.75, as 1834, reproduced in colour, p.218, as ‘The Burning of the Houses of Parliament’.
2004
Olivier Meslay, Turner: L’Incendie de la peinture, Découvertes Gallimard Arts, [Paris] 2004, p.95 as a Parliament subject 1834, reproduced in colour.
2004
Damien Sausset and Térésa Faucon, L’ABCdaire de Turner, ABCdaires, Paris 2004, pp.20–1, reproduced in colour.
2005
Olivier Meslay, Turner: L’Incendie de la peinture, Découvertes Gallimard Arts, [Paris] 2004, J.M.W. Turner: The Man Who Set Painting on Fire, trans. Ruth Sharman, London 2005, p.95 (as a Parliament subject 1834, reproduced in colour).
2007
Sarah Taft, in Ian Warrell (ed.), Franklin Kelly and others, J.M.W. Turner, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington 2007, p.176 no.125, as ‘The Burning of the Houses of Parliament’ 1834, reproduced in colour, p.178.
2012
Leo Costello, J.M.W. Turner and the Subject of History, Farnham 2012, fig.2.19, as ‘The Burning of the Houses of Parliament’. 1834.
This watercolour study was originally one of nine consecutive leaves (D27846–D27854; Turner Bequest CCLXXXIII 1–9) in a sketchbook. They have previously been documented with varying degrees of certainty as showing the 1834 fire at the Houses of Parliament beside the River Thames in central London, but are here identified as representing the similarly large and dramatic fire which broke out at the moated Tower of London on 30 October 1841, destroying the late seventeenth-century Grand Storehouse (see the Introduction to the sketchbook for detailed discussion). This is one of the least architecturally defined studies, but the White Tower may be shown just to the right of the fire, south of the incandescent Grand Storehouse, and there seems to be a hint of pale buildings receding beyond the moat to the south-east on the left. Compare the equally elemental treatment in D27853.
Addressing the sequence of studies in the context of the traditional former 1834 identification, Katherine Solender felt that the ‘fluid colours’ of this work, D27848 and D24849 ‘suggest burning architectural forms within an atmospheric setting, but these cannot be related to the fire at Westminster with any certainty’.1 In his extended catalogue entry for Turner’s painting The Burning of the House of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834, exhibited at the British Institution in 1835 (Philadelphia Museum of Art),2 Richard Dorment presented a sustained interpretation of the this and the other eight watercolour studies in terms of a sequence reflecting the topography and chronology of the 1834 Westminster fire.3
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘Fire at the Grand Storehouse of the Tower of London 1841 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www