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>
Lake Petworth Sunset Sample
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
England
England, South East
England, Southern
estate
lake
landscape
Petworth, Petworth House
places
sunset
Sussex - non-specific
Sussex, West
times of the day
UK cities, towns and villages
UK counties
UK countries and regions
water: inland
wooded
<p>Turner’s first painting of Petworth, a palatial country house and estate inland from Chichester in West Sussex, was made following a visit in 1809. Its owner, the Earl of Egremont, supported contemporary artists and had already begun a major collection of Turner’s paintings. He stayed at Petworth again in 1827 and often until the Earl’s death in 1837, even being allocated a room for his studio. He began work on four paintings on a double-square format for specific positions in Petworth’s Carved Room, looking out towards the lake. These are three of the studies he made for the series.</p><p><em>Gallery label, February 2010</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
30 July 2001 – 23 June 2002
2002-06-23
30 July 2001 – 23 June 2002
2002-06-23
2001-07-30
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-07-30
Painting the English Landscape
Collection based display
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
4 September 2004 – 9 January 2005
2005-01-09
4 September 2004 – 9 January 2005
2005-01-09
2004-09-04
Statens Museum for Kunst (Copenhagen, Denmark)
2004-09-04
Turner and Constable and their European Contemporaries
Loan-out
1 October 2007 – 21 September 2008
2008-09-21
1 October 2007 – 6 January 2008
2008-01-06
2007-10-01
National Gallery of Art (Washington DC, USA)
10 February 2008 – 18 May 2008
2008-05-18
2008-02-10
Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, USA)
http://www.DallasMuseumofArt.org
23 June 2008 – 21 September 2008
2008-09-21
2008-06-23
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
http://www.metmuseum.org
2007-10-01
JMW Turner
Tate partnerships & programmes
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
8 October 2011 – 28 May 2012
2012-05-28
8 October 2011 – 15 January 2012
2012-01-15
2011-10-08
Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden)
11 February 2012 – 28 May 2012
2012-05-28
2012-02-11
Staatsgalerie (Stuttgart, Germany)
http://www.staatsgalerie.de/
2011-10-08
On the Other Side of Air:Later paintings by Turner, Monet, Twombly
Loan-out
8 October 2011 – 28 October 2012
2012-10-28
8 October 2011 – 8 January 2012
2012-01-08
2011-10-08
Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden)
11 February 2012 – 28 May 2012
2012-05-28
2012-02-11
Staatsgalerie (Stuttgart, Germany)
http://www.staatsgalerie.de/
29 June 2012 – 28 October 2012
2012-10-28
2012-06-29
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2011-10-08
Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings
Exhibition
5 August 2017 – 16 December 2017
2017-12-16
5 August 2017 – 15 October 2017
2017-10-15
2017-08-05
The Arc, Winchester (Winchester, UK)
21 October 2017 – 16 December 2017
2017-12-16
2017-10-21
The Willis Museum (Basingstoke, UK)
2017-08-05
Turner and the Sun
Loan-out
16 October 2021 – 14 July 2023
2023-07-14
16 October 2021 – 6 March 2022
2022-03-06
2021-10-16
ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (Aarhus, Denmark)
18 May 2022 – 11 September 2022
2022-09-11
2022-05-18
Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (Barcelona, Spain)
http://www.mnac.es
8 October 2022 – 5 February 2023
2023-02-05
2022-10-08
National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin, Ireland)
http://www.nationalgallery.ie
3 March 2023 – 25 June 2023
2023-06-25
2023-03-03
Fondation Pierre Gianadda (Martigny, Switzerland)
2021-10-16
Turner Watercolours: Sun is God
Tate partnerships & programmes
7 October 2022 – 18 February 2024
2024-02-18
21 October 2023 – 18 February 2024
2024-02-18
2023-10-21
William Morris Gallery (London, UK)
2022-10-07
Radical Landscapes
Loan-out
19 March 2024 – 16 June 2024
2024-06-16
19 March 2024 – 16 June 2024
2024-06-16
2024-03-19
Compton Verney (Compton Verney, UK)
2024-03-19
Landscape and Imagination
Loan-out
The Lake, Petworth, Sunset; Sample Study
support: 660 × 1422 mm
frame: 948 × 1702 × 110 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
<p>Turner’s first painting of Petworth, a palatial country house and estate inland from Chichester in West Sussex, was made following a visit in 1809. Its owner, the Earl of Egremont, supported contemporary artists and had already begun a major collection of Turner’s paintings. He stayed at Petworth again in 1827 and often until the Earl’s death in 1837, even being allocated a room for his studio. He began work on four paintings on a double-square format for specific positions in Petworth’s Carved Room, looking out towards the lake. These are three of the studies he made for the series.
<br/></p>

Display caption
2010-02-18T00:00:00
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>284</b>. [<span>N02701</span>] <b>The Lake, Petworth, Sunset</b> <i>c.</i> 1828</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (2701)</p>
<p>Canvas, 25 1/2 × 55 1/2 (65 × 141)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (? one of 236 to 238, ‘Roll of 3 separate Canvasses Petworth Chain Pier and another’, no dimensions given); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1910, returned to the National Gallery 1961, and to the Tate Gallery 1968.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1974–5 (326).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> John Gore (ed.), <i>Creevey's Life and Times</i> 1934, p. 277; <i>Creevey</i> 1948, p. 293; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, p. 46; Gage 1969, pp. 176, 290 n. 91; Reynolds 1969, pp. 135–7; Joll 1977, p. 378, pl. 5; Kitson 1983, pp. 12–13.</p>
<p>That this work may have been partly painted <i>in situ</i> in the dining room at Petworth and be the picture of ‘Petworth Park’ seen there by Thomas Creevey in August 1828 (see pp. 164–5) is supported by the fact that the ground extends beyond the paint surface up to the cut edge 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/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a> along part of the top of the picture.</p>
<p>In the finished picture (No. 289 [<span>T03884</span>]) Turner added swans and deer drinking on the left and right sides of the lake respectively.</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
England England, South East England, Southern estate lake landscape Petworth, Petworth House places sunset Sussex - non-specific Sussex, West times of the day UK cities, towns and villages UK counties UK countries and regions water: inland wooded