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

This section comprises a single watercolour, recalling the funeral of Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830). He had been President of the Royal Academy and a leading portrait painter with a European reputation; he had also been Turner’s friend and loyal advocate. This elegiac subject was the last watercolour Turner exhibited at the Academy. Perhaps as a token of his deep regard for both the institution and its late President, it subsequently remained in his possession.