Oil paint on mahogany
Tate Britain
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
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>
A Country Blacksmith Disputing upon Price Iron and Price Charged to Butcher Shoeing his Poney
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
actions: expressive
adults
agriculture, gardening & fishing
animals: birds
animals: mammals
barrel
basket
bird - non-specific
blacksmith
broom
chicken
domestic
forge
group
groups
horse
industrial and crafts
interiors
man
manger
objects
people
saddle
talking
vessels and containers
work and occupations
workspaces
<p>At the 1807 Royal Academy exhibition this painting hung next to one by celebrated newcomer, David Wilkie. Turner wanted to prove he could paint scenes of everyday life just as brilliantly as Wilkie. Opinion was divided, but one observer said Wilkie’s painting was ‘flung into eclipse’ by Turner’s and that Turner’s work ‘killed’ others nearby. Its subject, an argument over a blacksmith’s prices, reflects the Napoleonic Wars’ impact on life in Britain. Such trades had to increase prices after 1806, when the government introduced a pig iron tax to pay war debts.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2023</em></p>
painting oil paint mahogany
10 March 2003 – 12 July 2004
2004-07-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-03-10
Royal Academy
Collection based display
21 September 2009 – 19 September 2010
2010-09-19
21 September 2009 – 24 January 2010
2010-01-24
2009-09-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
22 February 2010 – 23 May 2010
2010-05-23
2010-02-22
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (Paris, France)
21 June 2010 – 19 September 2010
2010-09-19
2010-06-21
Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid, Spain)
2009-09-21
Turner and the Masters
Exhibition
22 February 2010 – 19 September 2010
2010-09-19
21 September 2009 – 3 January 2010
2010-01-03
2009-09-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
22 February 2010 – 23 May 2010
2010-05-23
2010-02-22
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (Paris, France)
21 June 2010 – 19 September 2010
2010-09-19
2010-06-21
Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid, Spain)
2010-02-22
Turner and the Masters
Loan-out
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
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
13 March 2023
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2023-03-13
Gallery 104
Collection based display
A Country Blacksmith Disputing upon the Price of Iron, and the Price Charged to the Butcher for Shoeing his Poney
support: 549 × 778 mm
frame: 930 × 1148 × 150 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>At the 1807 Royal Academy exhibition this painting hung next to one by celebrated newcomer, David Wilkie. Turner wanted to prove he could paint scenes of everyday life just as brilliantly as Wilkie. Opinion was divided, but one observer said Wilkie’s painting was ‘flung into eclipse’ by Turner’s and that Turner’s work ‘killed’ others nearby. Its subject, an argument over a blacksmith’s prices, reflects the Napoleonic Wars’ impact on life in Britain. Such trades had to increase prices after 1806, when the government introduced a pig iron tax to pay war debts.</p>
</div>

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2023-10-25T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>68. </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-a-country-blacksmith-disputing-upon-the-price-of-iron-and-the-price-charged-to-the-n00478" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00478</span></a>]<b> A Country Blacksmith disputing upon the Price of Iron, and the Price charged to the Butcher for shoeing his Poney</b> Exh. 1807
<br/>
<br/>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (478)
<br/>Oil, 21 5/8 × 30 5/8 (55 × 78), on pine 22 5/8 × 31 5/8 (57·5 × 80·5)
<br/>Signed ‘J M W Turner RA’ lower left</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Bought 1808 by Sir John Leicester, Bt, later first Lord de Tabley, sold Christie's 7 July 1827 (14) bought Turner; Turner Bequest 1856 (46, ‘Blacksmiths Shop’ 2'6 1/2" × 1'10"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1910.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1807 (135); Sir John Leicester's gallery 1819 and subsequent years (19); Tate Gallery 1931 (27); R.A. 1974–5 (133, repr.).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Farington <i>Diary</i> 7 April, 8 May, 11 May, 2 June and 19 June 1807; Carey 1819, pp. 56–7 no. 19; Young 1821, p. 9 no. 19 engr.; Allan Cunningham, <i>Life of Wilkie</i> 1843, i, pp. 143–4; Cunningham 1852, pp. 24–5; Ruskin 1857 and 1857<sup>2</sup> (1903–12, xiii, pp. 156, 274–5 n.); Thornbury 1862, i, p. 289; 1877, pp. 425–6; Bell 1901, p. 84 no. 109; Armstrong 1902, p. 218; MacColl 1920, p. 6; Whitley 1928, pp. 120–21, repr.; Falk 1938, pp. 83–4; Davies 1946, p. 186; Clare 1951, pp. 36–7, pl. 38; Finberg 1961, pp. 134–6, 302, 468 no. 110, 478 no. 204, pl. 10; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, p. 20, pl. 29; Lindsay 1966, p. 100; Gage 1969, p. 243 n. 95; Reynolds 1969, pp. 62–4, pl. 43; Herrmann 1975, pp. 19, 228–9, pl. 52; Wilton 1979, p. 123; Chubb 1981<sup>2</sup>, p. 34, pl. 15; Marks 1981, pp. 334–9, 344, pl. 4.</p>
<p></p>
<p>In this picture Turner was almost certainly inspired by the success of the young David Wilkie, ten years his junior, with his first exhibit at the R.A. the year before, <i>Village Politicians</i>, which is also in the Teniers manner. In 1807 Wilkie exhibited <i>The Blind Fiddler</i> (Tate Gallery; repr. illustrated souvenir <i>David Wilkie</i> R.A. 1958, pl. 5), also an interior.
<br/>
<br/>According to Wilkie's biographer, Allan Cunningham, <i>The Blind Fiddler</i> was ‘flung into eclipse by the unmitigated splendour of a neighbouring picture, hung for that purpose beside it, as some averred, and painted into its overpowering brightness, as others more bitterly said in the varnishing time which belongs 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> between the day when the pictures are sent in, and that on which the Exhibition opens’. Allan Cunningham's son Peter, in his memoir of Turner (1852, <i>loc. cit.</i>), describes <i>A Country Blacksmith</i> and <i>Sun Rising through Vapour</i> (No. 69) as ‘two pictures which “killed” every picture within range of their effects’ and adds that it was these pictures that damaged <i>The Blind Fiddler</i>: ‘on the varnishing day set apart to the privileged body to which he belonged, Turner it is said, reddened his sun and blew the bellows of his art on his blacksmith's forge’. Although it is difficult to see that Turner acted as here described, there is a possibility that he altered <i>Sun Rising through Vapour, q.v.</i>
<br/>
<br/>Farington, apparently reporting Westall, who had seen the picture on 7 April 1807, noted that the ‘small picture of the inside of a Farrier's Shop, is a very clever picture’. On 2 June he notes Marchi's opinion that ‘Turner's <i>Forge</i>’ was ‘flimsy’. However Jameson told Farington on 11 May that he admired Turner's ‘<i>Forge</i>, which he thought finer colouring than the picture by Wilkie-warmer’, and Smirke told him on 19 June that he thought the picture ‘excellent’.
<br/>
<br/>There is a sketch of a horse being shod, in the same pose but involving the other leg, in the ‘Finance’ sketchbook (CXXII-9; repr. Chubb <i>loc. cit.</i>, pl. 14). Derek Chittock (verbal communication to Evelyn Joll) has pointed out that there was a blacksmith's forge just by W.F. Well's cottage at Knockholt, on which this picture may have been based.
<br/>
<br/>The <i>St. James Chronicle</i> for 9–12 May described the picture as displaying a ‘Considerable share of humour. The attitudes of the disputants are highly natural’. On the other hand the <i>Monthly Magazine</i>, 1 June, felt that the full title was ‘rather too much to express in picture, nor is it reasonable to expect that such a story should be clearly told 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/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a>.’ Nevertheless, according to the <i>Cabinet or Monthly Report of Polite Literature</i> for February–June, ‘In this picture, art is certainly carried to a very considerable extent; to succeed in rendering such a scene so highly <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>, must be attended with no little difficulty. There is a great variety of appropriate forms managed with infinite skill; and had the characters and expressions been sufficiently defined and varied to be equal to the colouring and effect, we should have pronounced it a perfect work.’
<br/>
<br/>On 8 May Farington recorded that Sir George Beaumont ‘sd. Sir John Leicester had told him that He had asked Turner the price of His picture of a Forge. Turner answered that He understood Wilkie was to have 100 guineas for <i>His Blind Fiddler</i> &amp; He should not rate His picture at a less price.’ Turner, as his receipt of 9 January 1808 shows, got his price. 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>painting</span></a> returned to Turner's possession in 1827 when he bought it back for 140 guineas at the sale following the death of Sir John Leicester, later 1st Lord de Tabley.
<br/>
<br/>There are a number of <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 figures engaged in various indoor activities in the ‘Hesperides (I)’ sketchbook of <i>c.</i>
1805–7, one being used for this picture (XCIII-22 <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>). A rebate round the edge shows that the picture was finished in its frame.</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
actions: expressive adults agriculture, gardening & fishing animals: birds animals: mammals barrel basket bird - non-specific blacksmith broom chicken domestic forge group groups horse industrial and crafts interiors man manger objects people saddle talking vessels and containers work and occupations workspaces