This dream-like view of Durham, seen from the Prebends' bridge, provides a dramatic contrast with Turner's earlier and altogether more earthy watercolour of it made in 1801, which was also in Vaughan's collection. Here the artist has used conventions of composition and lighting found in the work of the great seventeenth-century landscape painter Claude Lorrain to enrich his vision.

Of all the old master painters Turner admired, Claude became the most influential. He had numerous opportunities to study Claude's works as many of them were in British collections by the early nineteenth century, having been avidly acquired by Grand Tourists. Turner's respect for Claude was essentially based on the fact that he shared the earlier artist's ambition to explore fully the myriad poetic possibilities of landscape as a serious subject for art. In one of his 1811 lectures on perspective delivered at the Royal Academy he described Claude's work as 'calm, beautiful and serene'. The golden light and setting sun, as well as the composition of this watercolour, in which the city is carefully 'framed' with the trees at the left and parapet at the right, all allude to the precedent of Claude; as a result a city in northern England is almost transformed into one of his Mediterranean seaports.

Turner employed poetic licence to suit his purpose; he turned the cathedral forty-five degrees from its true position so that it faces the viewer more emphatically. He also extensively worked with great precision this part of his composition, carefully incising the paper, with a needle or very sharp knife, to define the architectural details. The artist also took particular care over the print made from Durham, which was engraved by the Scot William Miller (1796—1882) in 1836, and published as number one in part 28 of Picturesque Views in England and Wales. Henry Vaughan must have fully understood Turner's respect for Claude: he owned one of Claude's drawings and valued highly the artist's Liber Studiorum prints — arguably Turner's most sustained homage to his predecessor.

Revised 2022
Published online 2016/17
This text was first published in J.M.W Turner: The Vaughan Bequest (2008)