Oil paint on oak
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>
Lucy Countess Carlisle and Dorothy Percys Visit to their Father Lord Percy when under Attainder 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
architecture
aristocrat
Bedford, Ann Carr, Countess of
chair
crime and punishment
daughter
England
family
father
features
fine arts and music
furnishings
group
groups
groups
history
interiors
man
named individuals
Northumberland, Henry Percy, 9th Earl of
objects
painting
people
Percy, Dorothy
Percy, Lucy
places
politics and society
portraits
prison
prisoner
protests and unrest: Gunpowder Plot, 1605
public and municipal
royalty and social rank
society
sunbeam
Tower Hamlets
Tower Hamlets, Tower of London
UK countries and regions
UK London
weather
window
woman
work and occupations
<p>Turner exhibited this tribute to the seventeenth-century painter, Sir Anthony Van Dyck, in 1831. The composition is based on paintings by Van Dyck belonging to Turner's patron, the third Earl of Egremont.</p><p>The painting shows one of Egremont's ancestors, Henry Percy (seated) and his daughters Lucy (left) and Dorothy (right). They had obtained his release from the Tower of London, where he was imprisoned on suspicion of being involved in the Gunpowder Plot. The story is echoed by the paintings on the wall: a view of the Tower and a large painting of the Angel releasing St Peter from prison.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint oak
4 July 2002 – 29 September 2002
2002-09-29
4 July 2002 – 29 September 2002
2002-09-29
2002-07-04
National Trust: Petworth House (Petworth, UK)
2002-07-04
Turner at Petworth
Loan-out
15 July 2002 – 21 May 2007
2007-05-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-07-15
Exhibiting Turner
Collection based display
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
Lucy, Countess of Carlisle, and Dorothy Percy’s Visit to their Father Lord Percy, when under Attainder ...
support: 400 × 692 mm
frame: 744 × 1043 × 140 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="para3">
<span class="text0">Turner exhibited this tribute to the </span><span class="text19">seventeenth-century painter, Sir Anthony</span><span class="text0"> </span><span class="text21">Van Dyck, in 1831. The <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> is</span><span class="text0"> </span><span class="text19">based on <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>paintings</span></a> by Van Dyck</span><span class="text0"> belonging </span><span class="text20">to Turner's patron,      the third Earl of</span><span class="text0"> Egremont. </span>
</div>
<div class="para10">
<span class="text0">
<br/> </span>
</div>
<div class="para3">
<span class="text19">The painting shows one of Egremont's ancestors, Henry      Percy (seated) and his </span><span class="text23">daughters Lucy (left)      and Dorothy (right)</span><span class="text0">. They had obtained his      release from the </span><span class="text14">Tower of London, where he was</span><span class="text22"> </span><span class="text0">imprisoned on suspicion of      being </span><span class="text19">involved in the Gunpowder Plot.  The      story </span><span class="text0">is echoed by the paintings on the wall:  a      view of the Tower and a large painting  </span><span class="text19">of the      Angel releasing St Peter from</span><span class="text0"> prison. </span>
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2004-09-08T00:00:00
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<p><b>338. </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-lucy-countess-of-carlisle-and-dorothy-percys-visit-to-their-father-lord-percy-when-n00515" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00515</span></a>]<b> Lucy, Countess of Carlisle, and Dorothy Percy's Visit to their Father Lord Percy, when under Attainder upon the Supposition of his being concerned in the Gunpowder Plot</b> Exh 1831</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (515)</p>
<p>Oil, approx. 15 3/4 × 27 1/4 (40 × 69·5), on oak panel, 16 × 27 1/8 (40·5 × 70); original framing members, 20 × 32 5/16 (51 × 81·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (22, ‘Lord Percy’ 2'3 1/2" × 1'3 1/2"): transferred to the Tate Gallery 1905.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1831 (263); C.E.M.A. tour 1944 (34); R.A. 1974–5 (333).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Thornbury 1862, i, p. 320; 1877, p. 447; Bell 1901, p. 116 no. 173; Armstrong 1902, p. 226; Whitley 1930, p. 213; Davies 1946, p. 186; Finberg 1961, pp. 326–27, 491 no. 359; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, p. 45; Herrmann 1975, p. 38; Wilton 1979, p. 206, pl. 211; Finley 1981<sup>2</sup>, pp. 241–7, pl. 41; Youngblood 1983, p. 17.</p>
<p>Number 4 on Turner's own list of titles for his 1831 R.A. exhibits (Tate Gallery archives): his punctuation differs slightly from that in the catalogue.</p>
<p>Painted, like its companion <i>Watteau Study by Fresnoy's Rules</i> (No. 340 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-watteau-study-by-fresnoys-rules-n00514" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00514</span></a>]), on the <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/panel" title="Glossary definition for 'Panel'"><span>panel</span></a> of an upright door (the framing members of which remain as an inner frame round the picture) which one would like to believe came from a cupboard at Petworth. The link with Petworth is direct in this case, the house having belonged to the Percy family from 1150 until the end of the seventeenth century. Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland (1564–1632), known as the ‘Wizard Earl’ on account of his scientific and alchemical experiments, was suspected of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot and imprisoned for sixteen years in the Tower of London. On his release in 1621 he retired to Petworth. Dorothy, his eldest daughter (1598–1677), married Robert Sidney, second Earl of Leicester, while Lucy (1599–1660), after spending some time with her father in the Tower, married in 1617 James Hay, later Earl of Carlisle, who, as one of the King's favourites, helped to secure Northumberland's release; she was famous as a beauty and a wit and played a considerable part in political affairs under Charles I and during the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/civil-war-and-commonwealth" title="Glossary definition for 'Civil War and Commonwealth'"><span>Civil War and Commonwealth</span></a>, as a result of which she too was imprisoned in the Tower for eighteen months in 1649–50.</p>
<p>Among the <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>paintings</span></a> shown on the right-hand wall are a view labelled ‘TOWER OF LONDON’ and a large picture of the Angel releasing St Peter from prison which also relates to Turner's subject.</p>
<p>Turner based his figures on pictures by, or attributed to, Van Dyck at Petworth (for a copy of one of these <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/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portraits</span></a> among the Petworth body-colours on blue <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/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a> see CCXLIV-100). The ninth Earl and Lucy Percy (on the left) are based on three-quarter-length portraits of the same sitters, while the woman standing behind the other two is based on another three-quarter-length portrait of Ann Carr, Countess of Bedford 1620–84. The third woman, that on the right, is presumably Dorothy but is not specifically related to the Van Dyck portrait, three-quarter-length but seated, of that sitter. For another pastiche of the Petworth Van Dycks see <i>A Lady in Van Dyck Costume</i> of about the same date (No. 444 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-a-lady-in-a-van-dyck-costume-n05511" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05511</span></a>]).</p>
<p>Finley relates this picture and its companion to such small historical scenes in interiors as Bonington's <i>Henri IV and the English Ambassador</i>, exhibited at the Royal <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>Academy</span></a> and now in the Wallace Collection (repr. <i>op. cit.</i>, pl. 42b).</p>
<p>Both Nos. 338 [<span>N00515</span>] and 340 [<span>N00514</span>] have unfortunately darkened irretrievably so it is particularly interesting that the <i>Library of Fine Arts</i> for June 1831 singled out ‘the flood of light pouring like water over the ledges of a cataract into Lord Percy's chamber, dispelling its sombre hue’, an effect to be carried much further in <i>Interior at Petworth</i>
(No. 449 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-interior-of-a-great-house-the-drawing-room-east-cowes-castle-n01988" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01988</span></a>]). <i>La Belle Assemblée</i> for the same month recognised that ‘the artist has ingeniously adopted some of Van Dyck's costumes. This production also, as well as the Watteau study by Fresnoy's rules ... will attract notice as an extraordinary combination of colour’. The <i>Morning Chronicle</i>, 16 May, was less complimentary to Turner, whom they called ‘The Yellow Admiral’: ‘It seems that the design has no reference to history, but is amongst Mr. T's <i>jeux d'esprit</i> and represents the present Percy, Duke of Northumberland, huddled up in an arm chair with the stomach-ache, on <i>Dolly</i> and the other daughters of corruption announcing to him the success of <i>Reform</i>’ (the Reform Bill was finally passed the following year).</p>
<p><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 architecture aristocrat Bedford, Ann Carr, Countess of chair crime and punishment daughter England family father features fine arts and music furnishings group groups groups history interiors man named individuals Northumberland, Henry Percy, 9th Earl of objects painting people Percy, Dorothy Percy, Lucy places politics and society portraits prison prisoner protests and unrest: Gunpowder Plot, 1605 public and municipal royalty and social rank society sunbeam Tower Hamlets Tower Hamlets, Tower of London UK countries and regions UK London weather window woman work and occupations