Oil paint on canvas
Sussex, West
Sussex - non-specific
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>
Petworth Park Tillington Church in Distance
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
animals: mammals
deer
dog - non-specific
England
England, South East
England, Southern
estate
figure
landscape
natural phenomena
people
Petworth, Petworth House
places
shadow
sunset
Sussex - non-specific
Sussex, West
Tillington - non-specific
times of the day
UK cities, towns and villages
UK counties
UK countries and regions
<p>The long terrace along Petworth’s west front is shown curving upwards to left and right in a fish-eye lens perspective effect emphasised by the clouds seeming to arch downwards on each side of the setting sun. Lord Egremont’s dogs dash from his chair past the unconcerned deer to greet him. This incident was left out of the finished version installed at Petworth in favour of a cricket match in the park, one of the entertainments the benevolent Egremont liked to hold for the local people.</p><p><em>Gallery label, February 2016</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
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
19 July 2003 – 11 January 2004
2004-01-11
19 July 2003 – 11 January 2004
2004-01-11
2003-07-19
Lowry Museum (Salford, UK)
2003-07-19
The Impossible View
Loan-out
19 August 2009 – 27 July 2010
2010-07-27
19 August 2009 – 27 July 2010
2010-07-27
2009-08-19
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-19
Landscape and Nation: Turner's Britain
Collection based display
10 January 2015 – 11 March 2015
2015-03-11
10 January 2015 – 11 March 2015
2015-03-11
2015-01-10
National Trust: Petworth House (Petworth, UK)
2015-01-10
Mr Turner
Loan-out
1 December 2017 – 30 April 2018
2018-04-30
1 December 2017 – 30 April 2018
2018-04-30
2017-12-01
Groninger Museum (Groningen, The Netherlands)
http://www.groninger-museum.nl
2017-12-01
Romanticism in Northern Europe
Loan-out
Petworth Park: Tillington Church in the Distance
support: 600 × 1457 mm
frame: 930 × 1707 × 155 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>The long terrace along Petworth’s west front is shown curving upwards to left and right in a fish-eye lens perspective effect emphasised by the clouds seeming to arch downwards on each side of the setting sun. Lord Egremont’s dogs dash from his chair past the unconcerned deer to greet him. This incident was left out of the finished version installed at Petworth in favour of a cricket match in the park, one of the entertainments the benevolent Egremont liked to hold for the local people.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2016-02-18T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p>[from]<b> Nos. 282–91 : Petworth Landscapes, <i>c.</i> 1828–30</b></p>
<p>THESE fall into two groups, plus the separate <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> relating to the two versions of <i>Chichester Canal</i> (No. 282 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-lake-petworth-sunrise-n05563" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05563</span></a>]). The first group consists of the five works from the Turner Bequest now in the Tate Gallery (Nos. 283–7); the second of the four rather more finished pictures still at Petworth (Nos. 288–91). These latter works originally hung below full-length seventeenth-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/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portraits</span></a> in the Grinling Gibbons panelled dining-room, and are more or less closely based on four of the Tate Gallery pictures, at least one of which seems originally to have hung in the place later occupied by one of the more finished pictures.</p>
<p>Although Turner had painted a view of Petworth House in 1810 (No. 113 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-petworth-sussex-the-seat-of-the-earl-of-egremont-dewy-morning-t03880" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T03880</span></a>]) and had sold a considerable number of pictures to Lord Egremont, he became a more frequent visitor to Petworth after the death of his father in 1829. In particular it is known that he stayed there from December 1830 to January 1831. Nearly all recent writers on Turner have followed Finberg in assuming that it was then that 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/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscapes</span></a> were painted, or at least begun. On the other hand, Collins Baker dates them <i>c.</i> 1829–30, with the exception of the <i>Brighton</i>, which he assigns definitely to 1830. MacColl, following earlier National Gallery catalogues, dates the sketches for <i>Petworth Park</i> and <i>Chichester Canal</i> (Nos. 283 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-petworth-park-tillington-church-in-the-distance-n00559" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00559</span></a>] and 285 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-chichester-canal-n00560" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00560</span></a>]) to 1829. Thornbury dates the <i>Petworth Park</i> even earlier, 1828.</p>
<p>In fact, the first known reference to the landscapes occurs in a letter from Thomas Creevey to Miss Ord of 18 August 1828, giving an account of his visit to Petworth on 16–17 August. After describing ‘the sixty foot dining room’ with its full-length portraits, he goes on, ‘Immense as these pictures are with all their garniture there are still <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>panels</span></a> to spare, and as he [Lord Egremont] always has artists ready in the house, in one of these compartments, you have Petworth Park by Turner, in another Lord Egremont taking a walk with nine dogs, that are his constant companions, by the same artist ...’ The second of the pictures mentioned must be the Tate Gallery's <i>Petworth Park: Tillington Church in the Distance</i> (No. 283 [<span>N00559</span>]), the dogs in which are omitted from the more finished version at Petworth (No. 288 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-lake-petworth-sunset-fighting-bucks-t03883" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T03883</span></a>]). The other picture is presumably the Tate's <i>Lake, Petworth, Sunset</i> (No. 284 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-lake-petworth-sunset-sample-study-n02701" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02701</span></a>]), unless the more finished version (No. 289 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-lake-petworth-sunset-a-stag-drinking-t03884" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T03884</span></a>]) was already <i>in situ</i>.</p>
<p>John Gage has recently discovered that Turner was at Petworth in August 1827, and the landscapes may have been begun then. On the other hand, Gage has also suggested that the Tate Gallery pictures were begun in London and rejected because they turned out to be too large (1969, p. 260 n. 91), but Creevey's report makes this highly unlikely unless the pictures he saw were somehow only temporarily superimposed on the panels. In any case, the Tate pictures are not consistently larger than the final versions. It may therefore be that Lord Egremont, whose collection had hitherto been confined to Turner's earlier style, found the first set of pictures too sketchy in style; the history of <i>Palestrina</i> (No. 295 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-palestrina-composition-n06283" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N06283</span></a>]) suggests another instance of Lord Egremont failing to appreciate Turner's mature work.</p>
<p>That Turner painted some if not all of the Petworth landscapes in the studio specially provided for him in the house is suggested by an anecdote in George Jones' manuscript <i>Recollections of Sir Francis Chantrey,</i> written in 1849: ‘When Turner painted a series of landscapes at Petworth, for the dining-room, he worked with his door locked against everybody but the master of the house. Chantrey was there at the time, and determined to see what Turner was doing; he imitated Lord Egremont's peculiar step, and the two distinct raps on the door by which his lordship was accustomed to announce himself: and the key being immediately turned, he slipped into the room before the artist could shut him out, which joke was mutually enjoyed by the two attached friends’ (reprinted in Finberg 1961, p. 325).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Thornbury 1862, i, p. 306; 1877, p. 439; Collins Baker 1920, pp. 124–5; MacColl 1920, p. 27; John Gore (ed.), <i>Creevey's life and Times: A Further Selection from the Correspondence of Thomas Creevey</i> 1934, p. 277; John Gore (ed.), <i>Creevey</i> 1948, p. 293; Finberg 1961, p. 325; Herrmann 1975, pp. 34, 231–2; Joll 1977, pp. 374–9; Young-blood 1983, p. 16.</p>
<p><b>283. </b>[<span>N00559</span>]<b> Petworth Park: Tillington Church in the Distance</b>
<i>c.</i> 1828</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (559)</p>
<p>Canvas, 25 3/8 × 57 3/8 (64·5 × 145·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (? 99, ‘Scene at Petworth’, no dimensions given); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1910.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> Amsterdam 1936 (160); New York, Chicago and Toronto 1946–7 (52, pl. 42); Venice and Rome 1948 (33); New York 1966 (6, repr. p. 26); R.A. 1974–5 (325).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Thornbury 1862, i, pp. 306, 349; 1877, pp. 439, 467; Armstrong 1902, p. 226; John Gore (ed.), <i>Creevey's Life and Times</i> 1934, p. 277; Davies 1946, p. 187; John Gore (ed.), <i>Creevey</i> 1948, p. 293; Rothenstein 1949, p. 14, colour pl. 7; Kitson 1964, p. 78, repr. in colour p. 35; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, pp. 46–8, colour pl. xii; Gowing 1966, p. 27, repr. p. 26; Lindsay 1966, p. 177; Gage 1969, p. 260 n. 91; Reynolds 1969, pp. 135–7, colour pl. 120; Gaunt 1971, p. 7, colour pl. 22; Herrmann 1975, pp. 34, 231–2, colour pl. 108; Joll 1977, p. 378, pl. 4; Wilton 1979, p. 165.</p>
<p>That this picture was no. 99 in the schedule is suggested by the fact that the next item, no. 100, was the companion <i>View near Chichester</i>; see No. 285 [<span>N00560</span>].</p>
<p>A double-page sketch in the ‘Petworth’ sketchbook is related in general terms (CCXLIII-77 <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 78). In the finished version of 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> (No. 288 [<span>T03883</span>]) extra animals have been added in the foreground, including a pair of fighting bucks. A cricket match replaces the scene of dogs rushing out to meet their master on the left. As in <i>Chichester Canal</i> (see Nos. 285 [<span>N00560</span>] and 290 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-chichester-canal-t03885" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T03885</span></a>]) the sky has been softened and given less weight in the composition.</p>
<p>The painting of the sky seems to have been completed when the picture was already framed in some way, a strip along the top (but excluding the vertical of the window frame on the left) and upper right-hand edge being much less finished than the rest. This ties in with the evidence that the picture was actually installed in the dining room at Petworth when Thomas Creevey was there in August 1828 (see pp. 164–5).</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/>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults animals: mammals deer dog - non-specific England England, South East England, Southern estate figure landscape natural phenomena people Petworth, Petworth House places shadow sunset Sussex - non-specific Sussex, West Tillington - non-specific times of the day UK cities, towns and villages UK counties UK countries and regions