.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This is one of four finished watercolours of Cassiobury Park, Hertfordshire, the seat of the fifth Earl of Essex, painted in about 1807, presumably on commission, and engraved for the History and Description of Cassiobury Park, published in 1816. The project may date from several years earlier; in 1795 Turner was commissioned by the Earl, then Viscount Malden, to do five drawings of his house Hampton Court, Herefordshire, and there are a number of drawings of Cassiobury in the Fonthill sketchbook, begun in 1799. The study for the present watercolour is T.B. XLVII, p. 41 (illustrated A.J. Finberg, Turner's Sketches and Drawings, London, 1910, reprinted ed. L. Gowing, New York, 1968, pl. XV): the pencil drawing lacks figures and differs in details of the foliage. The three other watercolours engraved by Hill for the 1816 publication are Cassiobury, Herts. (Wilton 1979 no. 189; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), West Front, Cassiobury (Wilton 190; untraced), and The Great Cloister, Cassiobury (Wilton 192; untraced). There are also finished watercolours dating to about 1795-1799 of Cottages in the Park, Cassiobury (Wilton 187; private collection) and Cassiobury Park, the Deer House (Wilton 188; Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino).
As well as the watercolours of Hampton Court, Herefordshire, Lord Essex also purchased three oil paintings, probably at Turner's exhibitions in his own gallery in 1807, 1808 and 1809 (M. Butlin and E. Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, New Haven and London, 1984, nos. 63, 74 and 92). Two oils apparently painted for him remain in the Turner Bequest (M. Butlin and E. Joll, op. cit., nos. 209 and 209a). Finberg suggests that one or more of the Cassiobury watercolours may also have been exhibited in Turner's gallery in 1808 (loc.cit.). For the Turners in the Essex collection and the suggestion that this watercolour may have been among works that passed to Richard Ford, the husband of Essex's illegitimate daughter, see Gage, loc.cit.; Ford's collection is discussed by G.Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, 1854, vol. II, pp. 223 ff.
As well as the watercolours of Hampton Court, Herefordshire, Lord Essex also purchased three oil paintings, probably at Turner's exhibitions in his own gallery in 1807, 1808 and 1809 (M. Butlin and E. Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, New Haven and London, 1984, nos. 63, 74 and 92). Two oils apparently painted for him remain in the Turner Bequest (M. Butlin and E. Joll, op. cit., nos. 209 and 209a). Finberg suggests that one or more of the Cassiobury watercolours may also have been exhibited in Turner's gallery in 1808 (loc.cit.). For the Turners in the Essex collection and the suggestion that this watercolour may have been among works that passed to Richard Ford, the husband of Essex's illegitimate daughter, see Gage, loc.cit.; Ford's collection is discussed by G.Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, 1854, vol. II, pp. 223 ff.