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Lot Essay
Dr Thomas Monro (1759-1833) is now best remembered for his role in nurturing Turner and Girtin and many of the succeeding generation of landscape artists working in watercolour. Between 1794 and 1798, these two leading lights would visit his new home on Adelphi Terrace where they collaborated in producing versions of drawings in Monro’s collection, most notably those by John Robert Cozens (1752-1797). The latter was then one of the doctor’s patients at Northampton House, St John Street, Smithfield, having suffered a mental collapse in 1794.
Monro’s family had a long connection with the treatment of mental illness in Britain. Having studied at the Royal College of Physicians, Monro succeeded his father in 1792 as physician at both the Bridewell and Bethlam hospitals. On his father’s death the previous year he had already inherited responsibility for (and the substantial income from) Brooke House in Hackney, which had been run as a private asylum since 1759. Regrettably, Monro’s supervision of these and other institutions appears to have been rather dilatory; and despite advising on the sickness of George III in 1811-12, his ineffective and negligent management led to his humiliation and resignation in 1816 (see J. Andrews, Oxford Dictionary of Biography, online entry, published 2004).
Turner’s watercolour focuses on a picturesque corner of Brooke House, with a turret augmented with a sun dial. Originally known as King’s Place, the building acquired its name in the seventeenth century once it was acquired by the Greville family, the Barons Brooke of Beauchamps Court. Parts of the structure dated back to the 15th century, and there were notable historical associations, not least with Henry VIII, who had been reconciled there with his daughter Mary. However, it had been much modified over the intervening centuries. Its function as an asylum far outlived Dr Monro, but it was gutted by bombs during the first months of the London Blitz in 1940. After the war elements of its décor were salvaged for the Museum of London, but it was eventually demolished in the 1950s.
Among the earliest depictions of Brooke House is one of its east-facing facade by Wenceslas Hollar, bordering what is now the Upper Clapton Road (north of the junction with Kenninghall Road). Both in that image and others, the building possessed two octagonal towers beside a gateway (see the engraved view from the south-east dating from 1842, which republishes an image from almost a century earlier; Victoria and Albert Museum; E.4690-1923). It is not surprising, therefore, that Turner selected one of these distinctive features in this watercolour.
Turner probably painted his view of Brooke House quite early in his acquaintance with Dr Monro. A watercolour dated August 1793, afterwards owned by the doctor, records the church at Monken Hadley, including the neighbouring home of his brother James, indicating that Monro’s initial patronage concerned places with personal associations (see Wilton 40 and 40a). By a sorry coincidence, the deeply-troubled psychological state of Turner’s mother resulted in her become one of Monro’s patrons when she was moved in 1800 from St Luke’s Hospital for Lunaticks on Old Street to Bethlem Hospital.
Monro’s family had a long connection with the treatment of mental illness in Britain. Having studied at the Royal College of Physicians, Monro succeeded his father in 1792 as physician at both the Bridewell and Bethlam hospitals. On his father’s death the previous year he had already inherited responsibility for (and the substantial income from) Brooke House in Hackney, which had been run as a private asylum since 1759. Regrettably, Monro’s supervision of these and other institutions appears to have been rather dilatory; and despite advising on the sickness of George III in 1811-12, his ineffective and negligent management led to his humiliation and resignation in 1816 (see J. Andrews, Oxford Dictionary of Biography, online entry, published 2004).
Turner’s watercolour focuses on a picturesque corner of Brooke House, with a turret augmented with a sun dial. Originally known as King’s Place, the building acquired its name in the seventeenth century once it was acquired by the Greville family, the Barons Brooke of Beauchamps Court. Parts of the structure dated back to the 15th century, and there were notable historical associations, not least with Henry VIII, who had been reconciled there with his daughter Mary. However, it had been much modified over the intervening centuries. Its function as an asylum far outlived Dr Monro, but it was gutted by bombs during the first months of the London Blitz in 1940. After the war elements of its décor were salvaged for the Museum of London, but it was eventually demolished in the 1950s.
Among the earliest depictions of Brooke House is one of its east-facing facade by Wenceslas Hollar, bordering what is now the Upper Clapton Road (north of the junction with Kenninghall Road). Both in that image and others, the building possessed two octagonal towers beside a gateway (see the engraved view from the south-east dating from 1842, which republishes an image from almost a century earlier; Victoria and Albert Museum; E.4690-1923). It is not surprising, therefore, that Turner selected one of these distinctive features in this watercolour.
Turner probably painted his view of Brooke House quite early in his acquaintance with Dr Monro. A watercolour dated August 1793, afterwards owned by the doctor, records the church at Monken Hadley, including the neighbouring home of his brother James, indicating that Monro’s initial patronage concerned places with personal associations (see Wilton 40 and 40a). By a sorry coincidence, the deeply-troubled psychological state of Turner’s mother resulted in her become one of Monro’s patrons when she was moved in 1800 from St Luke’s Hospital for Lunaticks on Old Street to Bethlem Hospital.