Lot Essay
This magnificent early watercolour is one of only two panoramic views of London painted by Turner. In many ways it represents the culmination of Turner's 'early style'. D. Hill in Turner on the Thames (1993) writes that 'its tonal weight and composition are nevertheless as impressive, weighty, and 'old masterish' as great pictures were conceived to be'. In The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner (1979) Wilton mentions a variant of this watercolour in the United States and suggests that some parts of the provenance may have been confused. For instance, the Distant View of London lent by W. Wilson to the Manchester Art Treasures exhibition in 1857 (no.308a), when the present version still belonged to the Burnet family, is presumably this second version, as would seem to be that sold by J.T. Leader in these Rooms on 18 March 1843, lot 59 (37gns. to Graves).
The present picture was one of four exceptionally large watercolours exhibited by Turner at the Royal Academy in 1801, the year before he was elected a full Academician, and shows Turner's importance in the development of the exhibition watercolour, strong in form and colour and worthy to hang beside oil paintings: this led to the foundation of the Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1804, although Turner, fully established within the Royal Academy hierarchy, was not a participant. There is a pen and wash study in the Tate Gallery (Turner Bequest CXIX-T), which shows the main layout of the landscape, the cows and, identical in form, the trees on the left, but completely omits all topographical features.
The watercolour is taken from Clapham Common looking over Vauxhall towards Westminster and St. Paul's.
The present picture was one of four exceptionally large watercolours exhibited by Turner at the Royal Academy in 1801, the year before he was elected a full Academician, and shows Turner's importance in the development of the exhibition watercolour, strong in form and colour and worthy to hang beside oil paintings: this led to the foundation of the Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1804, although Turner, fully established within the Royal Academy hierarchy, was not a participant. There is a pen and wash study in the Tate Gallery (Turner Bequest CXIX-T), which shows the main layout of the landscape, the cows and, identical in form, the trees on the left, but completely omits all topographical features.
The watercolour is taken from Clapham Common looking over Vauxhall towards Westminster and St. Paul's.