Tabley, Cheshire, the Seat of Sir J.F. Leicester, Bart.: Calm Morning
Joseph Mallord William Turner, RA (London 1775 - Chelsea 1851)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1808 - 1809 (exh. at RA)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
910 x 1215 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486619
Caption
Turner stayed at Tabley in the summer of 1808; but according to a disgruntled fellow-artist there: "His time was occupied in fishing rather than painting." From the visit resulted, nonetheless, this picture and Tabley: Windy Day (Tabley House), painted for the galleries of the Hill Street house of Sir John Fleming Leicester, 5th Bt. (1762 — 1827), and Tabley itself, respectively. Sir John and the 3rd Earl of Egremont were close to one another in time and in taste in their patronage of Turner; hence the 3rd Earl buying this at the sale of the Hill Street pictures in 1827.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Tabley, Cheshire, the Seat of Sir J.F. Leicester, Bart: Calm Morning by Joseph Mallord William Turner, RA, (London 1775 - Chelsea 1851), signed bottom right: J M W TURNER RA, circa 1808. In the foreground is the lake with cows under the bank and at right, sailing boats and at left a skiff. In the right centre a round tower can be seen with sailing boats beneath and in the centre distance, the house. Painted with the companion painting Tabley: Windy Day (held in the Tabley House private collection) and presumably based from Turner’s earlier sketches held at Tate (see D06848).
Full description
Tabley: Calm Morning was painted with its companion Tabley: Windy Day (currently held at Tabley House) in the summer of 1808, around when Turner was staying at the house. Tabley was the country seat of Sir John Fleming Leicester, 5th Baronet and Baron de Tabley from 1826 (1762 - 1827) and this picture was one of ten Turner oils he bought or commissioned, largely between 1806 and 1809. Turner made a point of appearing to stay at Tabley as a guest, rather than as an artist employed to portray it. Henry Thomson (1773 -1843), who often held the same patrons and was invited to stay and make a painting of the lake and tower from an almost identical viewpoint at the same time, noted to A.W. Callcott that Turner’s "time was occupied in fishing rather than painting". It has been argued that Turner likely did not start the paintings until he returned to London: the oil-sketch was cut out of the ‘Tabley’ sketchbook and folded in four (Tate: D06848), as if for sending by post to Sir John Leicester for his approval, and Tabley: Windy Day, which was sent up to Tabley, has Turner’s London address inscribed on the stretcher. The sketch could also have been posted because Leicester was not at Tabley throughout the visit, however. The absence of the water tower on the earlier sketch and its inclusion in both the final painting and in Tabley: Windy Day, along with his associated sketches (see Tate D06990, D07002), indicates that Leicester could have later requested its inclusion. After Leicester’s death, his executors sold almost all of the paintings from his London house less than three weeks after his death on 18 June 1827, in order to catch the end of the season. Lord Egremont purchased this painting at the sale of the pictures from Lord de Tabley’s London house and likely encountered Turner as a fellow-bidder at the sale. Turner was invited to Petworth in the following August where he was probably commissioned to paint four pictures for the dining room, two of Petworth, between 1828-29. Egremont had previously commissioned two paintings by Turner in 1809, Petworth from the Lake: Dewy Morning and Cockermouth Castle, potentially influenced the display of Turner’s Tabley paintings at the Royal Academy that year. A. J. Finberg states that the picture fetched more at the de Tabley sale than Sir John Leicester had paid for it, at 165 guineas. This seems to contradict Farington's report that Callcott had told him that the Tabley views were ‘of Turner's 250 guineas size’. The discrepancy could be resolved by considering that as Turner frequently charged less for commissioned pictures, he could have charged a reduced price for the pictures together. The painting has been stylistically compared to Aelbert Cuyp and bears the influence of Turner’s friend, Callcot. The Morning Herald (4 May 1809) wrote: ‘In this felicitous imitation of a calm morning, the Artist has evidently taken Cuyp for his study; and it is but just to aver, that he has preserved the aerial perspective better than any other Artist within our remembrance, at least in this country. There is such repose in the whole composition, each part harmonizes with its adjunct object so happily, that a troubled spirit might dwell upon this picture in contemplation, until the nervous system were re-attuned by quietude, receiving an imperceptible anodyne through the operations of sympathy.’
Provenance
Painted for Sir John Fleming Leicester, later Lord de Tabley (1762-1827); bought from his sale at Christies, 7 July 1827, lot 34, for 165 guineas by George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837); thence by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72) arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by HM Treasury. Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax. Allocated to Tate in 1984 and on long-term loan from Tate to the National Trust at Petworth.
Credit line
Accepted by HM Government in lieu of tax and allocated to the Tate Gallery 1984. In situ at Petworth House
Makers and roles
Joseph Mallord William Turner, RA (London 1775 - Chelsea 1851), artist
Exhibition history
In Trust for the Nation, National Gallery, London, 1995 - 1996, no.32
References
Carey, 1819: William Carey, A Descriptive Catalogue of a Collection of Paintings by British Artists, in the possession of Sir John Fleming Leicester, Bart., 1819, no. 42 Butlin and Joll 1977 & 1984: Martin Butlin & Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, New Haven and London, 1977 & revised edn., 1984, no.99, vol.I, pp.70 -71, vol.II, pl. 107 Butlin and Warrell, 1989:Martin Butlin, Mollie Luther, & Ian Warrell, Turner at Petworth, The Tate Gallery, 1989, pp.25, 30 -31, 53, 133 & col.fig. 34. Harris 1979 John Harris, The Artist and the Country House. A History of Country House and Garden View Painting in Britain 1540-1870, London 1979, no. 397 Laing 2000: Alastair Laing, In Trust for the Nation: Paintings from National Trust Houses (exh. cat.), The National Gallery, London, 22 November 1995 - 10 March 1996, pp. 90-91 Butlin, Luther and Warrell 2002: Martin Butlin, Mollie Luther, and Ian Warrell, Turner at Petworth (exh. cat.), Tate Publishing, National Trust, Petworth House 6 July - 29 September 2002, pp. 46-49, 193 Farington 1922-8: James Greig (ed.), Joseph Farington, The Farington Diary by Joseph Farington, R.A., London [1922-28], pp. 111, 147, 215 Enklaar and Paarlberg 2021: Marlies Enklaar and Sander Paarlberg (eds.), In the Light of Cuyp: Aelbert Cuyp & Gainsborough - Constable – Turner, exh. cat., Dordrechts Museum, 3 October 2021 – 6 March 2022, pp. 160-1, fig. 3