Oil paint on canvas
Related works
Tate Collection
Works with images
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
Oil paintings
Collection
Turner owned by Tate
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558" aria-label="More by Joseph Mallord William Turner" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a>
England Richmond Hill on Prince Regents Birthday
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
England
government and politics
group
groups
hill
history
landscape
leisure and pastimes
man
party
patriotism
people
places
politics and society
recreational activities
Richmond, Richmond Hill
river
River Thames
royalty: Prince Regent, birthday, 12 Aug 1818
royalty: Prince Regent, official birthday, 23 Apr
seasons
society
summer
Twickenham - non-specific
UK countries and regions
UK London
UK natural features
water: inland
woman
wooded
<p>This was Turner’s largest painting yet when he exhibited it in 1819. It shows him making an unambiguous bid for royal patronage. As its title makes clear, the painting celebrates both the birthday of the Prince Regent (later George IV), and the splendour of the English landscape. The river Thames, a potent symbol of national identity, is at the centre. Despite Turner’s best efforts, the painting went unsold, and it remained in his possession until the end of his life.</p><p><em>Gallery label, November 2022</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
25 April 2001 – 29 July 2001
2001-07-29
25 April 2001 – 30 July 2001
2001-07-30
2001-04-25
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-04-25
House and Studio
Collection based display
7 November 2003 – 8 February 2004
2004-02-08
7 November 2003 – 8 February 2004
2004-02-08
2003-11-07
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (Birmingham, UK)
http://www.bmag.org.uk
2003-11-07
Turner's Britain
Loan-out
28 May 2007 – 27 July 2009
2009-07-27
28 May 2007
2007-05-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-05-28
A Turner Gallery
Collection based display
12 August 2009 – 26 July 2010
2010-07-26
12 August 2009 – 26 July 2010
2010-07-26
2009-08-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-12
Turner on the Thames
Collection based display
8 February 2013 – 13 April 2014
2014-04-13
8 February 2013 – 19 May 2013
2013-05-19
2013-02-08
Art Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide, Australia)
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au
4 June 2013 – 8 September 2013
2013-09-08
2013-06-04
National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia)
8 October 2013 – 18 December 2013
2013-12-18
2013-10-08
Toyko Metropolitan Art Museum (Toyko, Japan)
1 January 2014 – 13 April 2014
2014-04-13
2014-01-01
Kobe City Museum (Kobe, Japan)
2013-02-08
J.M.W. Turner: Makings of a Master
Loan-out
29 July 2019 – 3 November 2019
2019-11-03
29 July 2019 – 3 November 2019
2019-11-03
2019-07-29
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2019-07-29
1819 Spotlight
Collection based display
28 October 2020 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
28 October 2020 – 12 September 2021
2021-09-12
2020-10-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
17 October 2021 – 6 February 2022
2022-02-06
2021-10-17
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, USA)
http://www.kimbellart.org
27 March 2022 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
2022-03-27
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
2020-10-28
Turner's Modern World
Exhibition
17 October 2021 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
17 October 2021 – 6 February 2022
2022-02-06
2021-10-17
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, USA)
http://www.kimbellart.org
27 March 2022 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
2022-03-27
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
2021-10-17
Turner's Modern World
Loan-out
England: Richmond Hill, on the Prince Regent’s Birthday
support: 1800 × 3346 mm
frame: 2140 × 3700 × 190 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the <a href="/search?gid=999999781" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Turner Bequest</a> 1856
<div class="text">
<p>This was Turner’s largest painting yet when he exhibited it in 1819. It shows him making an unambiguous bid for royal patronage. As its title makes clear, the painting celebrates both the birthday of the Prince Regent (later George IV), and the splendour of the English landscape. The river Thames, a potent symbol of national identity, is at the centre. Despite Turner’s best efforts, the painting went unsold, and it remained in his possession until the end of his life.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2022-11-03T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>140. </b>[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-england-richmond-hill-on-the-prince-regents-birthday-n00502" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00502</span></a>]<b> England: Richmond Hill, on the Prince Regent's Birthday</b> Exh. 1819
<br/>
<br/>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (502)
<br/>Canvas, 70 7/4 × 131 3/4 (180 × 334·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (1, ‘Richmond Hill’ 11'0" × 5'11"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1910.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1819 (206); Turner's gallery 1835; R.A. 1974–5 (167); Paris 1983–4 (34, repr. in colour and, colour detail, p. 22); Birmingham 1984.</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Farington <i>Diary</i> 2 May 1819; Ruskin 1857 (1903–12, xiii, pp. 127, 135); Thornbury 1862, i, p. 301; 1877, p. 436; Hamerton 1879, pp. 169–70; Bell 1901, pp. 102–3 no. 143; Armstrong 1902, pp. 227; Whitley 1928, p. 300; Davies 1946, p. 185; Finberg 1961, pp. 259, 481 no. 251; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, pp. 32–4, pl. 55; Lindsay 1966, p. 157; Gage 1969, p. 167; Reynolds 1969, pp. 106–8, pl. 86; Ziff 1971, p. 126; Herrmann 1975, pp. 26, 230–31, pl. 83; Wilton 1979, p. 132, pl. 134; Gage 1980, p. 261; Stuckey 1981, pp. 4–6, pl. 5.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Exhibited with the following lines;
<br/></p>
<p>‘Which way, Amanda, shall we bend our course?
<br/>The choice perplexes. Wherefore should we chuse?
<br/>All is the same with thee. Say, shall we wind
<br/>Along the streams? or walk the smiling mead?
<br/>Or court the forest-glades? or wander wild
<br/>Among the waving harvests? or ascend,
<br/>While radiant Summer opens all its pride,
<br/>Thy Hill, delightful Shene?’</p>
<p align="right">Thomson
<br/></p>
<p>The verses, from Thomson's <i>Seasons</i>, ‘Summer’, II. 1401–8, continue, after the reference to Sheen, by describing the various places that can be seen from Richmond Hill, including a reference to
<br/></p>
<p>		‘... the matchless vale of Thames;
<br/>Fair-winding up to where the muses haunt
<br/>In Twit'nam's bowers, and for their Pope implore
<br/>The healing god; ...’ (ll. 1425–8).</p>
<p></p>
<p>This reference to the stretch of river seen in the picture also links it with Turner's earlier pictures <i>Pope's Villa</i> (which is situated in Twickenham) and <i>Thomson's Æolian Harp</i> (Nos. 72 and 86).
<br/>
<br/>The large size of this picture is all the more surprising in view of its domestic, pastoral subject. Like the later <i>What you Will</i> (No. 229), the subject may reflect in part the effect of French eighteenth-century <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a>: Jerrold Ziff has pointed out that several of the figures are based on a sketch in the ‘Hints River’ sketchbook of <i>c.</i>1815 after Watteau's <i>L'lle Enchantée</i> (CXLI-26 <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/recto-verso" title="Glossary definition for 'Recto / Verso'"><span>verso</span></a> and 27; see Ziff's review of Gage 1969, 1971). The same sketchbook also contains <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawings</span></a> of the general view from Richmond Hill (10 verso-13), as does the ‘Hastings to Margate’ sketchbook of about the same date (CXL-77 to 82). There are also a number of unfinished <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolours</span></a> and colour beginnings in the British Museum of various dates, as well as the finished watercolours in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, and in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, the first <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Engraving'"><span>engraved</span></a> in 1826 for <i>The Literary Souvenir</i>, the second in 1838 for <i><a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/picturesque" title="Glossary definition for 'Picturesque'"><span>Picturesque</span></a> Views in England and Wales</i> (see Wilton 1979, nos. 518, pl. 135, and 879, repr., and exh. cat., Paris 1983–4, nos. 199–202, all repr.).
<br/>
<br/>More closely related is the unfinished oil of the same view in Turner's normal large format, 58 × 93 3/4 in. (No. 227 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-richmond-hill-with-girls-carrying-corn-n05546" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05546</span></a>]). There are only a few figures in the foreground and the painting was presumably abandoned when Turner turned to the unprecedented scale of the finished picture, perhaps inspired by the idea of doing homage to the Prince Regent, a possible and highly desirable patron.
<br/>
<br/>Charles Stuckey has pointed out that in 1818 the Prince Regent had in fact ridden up to Richmond Hill from Kew Palace on 10 August, two days before his actual birthday, but that, perhaps more significantly, his official birthday was celebrated on his name day, St George's Day, 23 April, Turner's (and Shakespeare's) own birthday, when he was in London. Turner has shown a bright August afternoon but may well have also intended to celebrate his own birthday; his own country cottage, Sandycombe Lodge, falls within the picture, which shows the familiar and much painted view to the west over Twickenham rather than that to the north and Kew Palace. Stuckey has also suggested (1981, <i>loc. cit.</i>) that this picture was one of a number specifically aimed at procuring Royal patronage (see also Nos. 114, 247–248b, 252, 385, 392).
<br/>
<br/>This is one of the first of Turner's R.A. exhibits in connection with which there is some hint of his activities on the three Varnishing Days, granted to <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/academy" title="Glossary definition for 'Academy'"><span>Academicians</span></a> to give final touches to their pictures before the exhibition opened to the public. On 2 May 1819 Farington recorded criticism of the effect of ‘the flaming colour of Turner's pictures’ on their neighbours, immediately following this with a reference to ‘the pernicious effects arising from Painters working upon their pictures in the Exhibition by which they often render them unfit for a private room’ (reprinted in Gage 1969, p. 167). The <i>Repository of the Arts</i> for June 1819, though liking the picture less than <i>Entrance of the Meuse</i> (No. 139 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-entrance-of-the-meuse-orange-merchant-on-the-bar-going-to-pieces-brill-church-n00501" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00501</span></a>]), praised ‘the foreground beautifully worked up, and the azure blue of the distances modified in all the gradations of aerial <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/perspective" title="Glossary definition for 'Perspective'"><span>perspective</span></a>’. The <i>Annals of the Fine Arts</i>, on the other hand, recommended Turner ‘to pumice it down, give it a coat of priming, and paint such another picture as his building of Carthage’ (No. 131 [<span>N00498</span>]). For a contemporary account by a French visitor, A.J.B. Defauconpret, see John Gage in exh. cat., Paris 1983–4, p. 99.</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, <i>The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner</i>, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-22T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults England government and politics group groups hill history landscape leisure and pastimes man party patriotism people places politics and society recreational activities Richmond, Richmond Hill river River Thames royalty: Prince Regent, birthday, 12 Aug 1818 royalty: Prince Regent, official birthday, 23 Apr seasons society summer Twickenham - non-specific UK countries and regions UK London UK natural features water: inland woman wooded