J.M.W. Turner

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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J.M.W. Turner

by Charles Hutton Lear
pencil, circa 1847
4 1/4 in. x 4 3/8 in. (108 mm x 111 mm)
Given by John Elliot, 1907
Primary Collection
NPG 1456(25)

Sitterback to top

  • Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), Landscape painter. Sitter associated with 43 portraits, Artist or producer associated with 4 portraits.

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Current affairs

The 10 Hours Factory Act passed, regulating working hours for women and children under the age of eighteen to a maximum of ten hours a day.
The Communist League is founded in London, and drew up a set of rules and aims, including overthrowing the bourgeoisie and empowering the Proleteriat, and ending class division, forming the basis of Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto (1848).}
Death and emigration resulting from starvation, plague and disease during worst year of the Great Famine in Ireland, known as Black 47.

Art and science

A good year for novels: Emily Bronte's passionate, rebellious and gothic Wuthering Heightsis published, followed shortly by her sister Charlotte's 'Jane Eyre, a story of a governess's struggle for liberty from social and gender constrictions. Drawing on a similar vein of revolution and rebellious women, William Thackeray's satirical novel Vanity Fair is serialised.

International


The Don Pacifico affair sparks an international incident, when the Jewish trader's business was burned in an anti-semitic attack in Athens. When the Greek government refused to compensate him, Gibraltar-born Pacifico appealed to the British government. Foreign Minister Palmerston sent a squadron into the Aegean in 1850 to seize goods of the equivalent value, leading to strained relations with Turkey and Russia, and heated debates in Parliament.

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John Hardy

16 September 2022, 08:19

This is an important portrait to the Tate Britain, home to the largest collection of works by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851). It shows Turner still wearing his signature Victorian top hat in 1847. Why is this important? It associates a sketch of a place in the Dieppe and Kent Sketchbook in 1845 with the great artist himself and this helps to date his stay at the Château d'Eu dated 'Sept 11 45'. This sketch labelled 'An Interior with a Curtained Bed 1845' shows Turner's up turned top hat just before he left to sketch the coastal path and sands from Criel-sur-Mer west. I believe more likely the hat is on one of the beds at Château d'Eu than an Inn. The bed is like a bed in Victoria's bedroom painted by Adrien Dauzats: https://www.rct.uk/collection/920001/royal-visit-to-louis-philippe-queen-victorias-bedroom-at-the-chateau-deu-1843