One of Twenty Vignettes - The Beech Tree's Petition
About this artwork
The Scottish National Gallery has the only set of Turner’s literary vignettes that remain together in one collection, his twenty illustrations for ‘The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell’. These were made to be engraved in Edward Moxon’s edition of Campbell’s poems, published in 1837. Here, Turner shows a fashionable young couple in eighteenth-century clothing carving their names into the tree’s bark; the inscription they have made is a reference to the subject of D 5167. They have discarded a hat, shawl and parasol. In the foreground are the woodsman’s tools, and at the left a dog. The Victorian art critic John Ruskin is said to have particularly admired Turner’s depiction of the tree.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775 - 1851) English
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title:One of Twenty Vignettes - The Beech Tree's Petition
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date created:About 1835
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materials:Watercolour over pencil on paper
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measurements:13.50 x 11.00 cm (framed: 45.60 x 40.00 cm)
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object type:
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credit line:Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the National Gallery of Scotland, 1988
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accession number:D 5168
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gallery:
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner transformed the art of landscape painting in Britain. From detailed topographical studies to expansive, atmospheric vistas his works celebrate the diversity and emotive power of nature. He was born in Covent Garden, the son of a barber, and exhibited his earliest sketches in his father's...