The Fountain of Indolence is an oil painting by the English artist J. M. W. Turner. First exhibited in 1834, it is now in the collection of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Subject The painting depicts a scene described in Canto 1 of James Thomson's 1748 poem The Castle of Indolence. Thus easy-rob'd, they to the fountain sped That in the middle of the court up-threw A stream, high spouting from its liquid bed, And falling back again in drizzly dew; There each deep draughts, as deep he thirsted drew; It was a fountain of nepenthe rare; Whence, as Dan Homer sings, huge pleasaunce grew, And sweet oblivion of vile earthly care; Fair gladsome waking thoughts, and joyous dreams more fair. It shows an imaginary landscape with Classical buildings and ruins centred on the fountain, around and within which human and winged Cupid-like figures are grouped. History The Fountain of Indolence was first exhibited at the 66th Royal Academy Exhibition at Somerset House in May 1834, to a generally favourable reception. The subsequent history of the painting is unknown until 1882, when it was sold to Thomas Agnew & Sons by H. Lumley. William Henry Vanderbilt then purchased it from Agnew and it remained in the Vanderbilt family until 1958. George W. Vanderbilt loaned it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for an exhibition of British paintings in 1907. In 1958 Lord Beaverbrook was actively seeking a "first-rate" Turner painting for the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, which was to open the following year in Fredericton. He purchased The Fountain of Indolence from the dealers Leggatt Brothers of London. The painting became central to a dispute that developed in 2004 between the Gallery and the Beaverbrook UK Foundation, which claimed ownership of 133 paintings that had been acquired by Lord Beaverbrook for the Gallery. The Foundation proposed to take back and sell The Fountain of Indolence, which Sotheby's had valued in 2002 at between $16.7 and $25 million in Canadian funds. The Gallery denied that the Foundation owned the paintings, maintaining that they all belonged to the Gallery. Both sides agreed to submit to arbitration, which resulted in a 2007 ruling that 85 of the paintings, including The Fountain of Indolence, belonged to the Gallery, while the remaining 48 belonged to the Foundation. The Foundation appealed the ruling, but it was confirmed by an appeal panel in 2009.