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Contents. List of Illustrations (In certain versions of this etext [in certain browsers]clicking on the image will bring up a larger version.) (etext transcriber's note)

TURNER’S WATER-COLOURS
AT FARNLEY HALL

TEXT BY ALEX. J. FINBERG


“THE STUDIO,” LTD., LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK
{1} 

 

 

T is not known for certain exactly when or how Turner became acquaintedwith Mr. Walter Ramsden Hawksworth Fawkes of Farnley Hall. Severalbiographers say that Turner first met Mr. Fawkes about 1802, when theartist was in Yorkshire making drawings for one of the series oftopographical works dealing with parts of Yorkshire which Dr. Whitaker,the vicar of Whalley, prepared and published. But Whitaker’s “History ofthe Parish of Whalley,” which was published about this date, contains noreference to Farnley, and deals with a part of Yorkshire and Lancashireat some distance from Farnley. The only book of Dr. Whitaker whichcontains any illustrations connected with Farnley Hall is the “Loidisand Elmete,” published in 1816, and we know that Turner had becomeintimate with Mr. Fawkes some years before this date.

The first certain piece of evidence connecting Mr. Fawkes with Turner iscontained in some of the sketch-books used by the artist during hisfirst tour in Switzerland in the year 1802. Mr. Fawkes’s name is notmentioned in full, but a capital “F” is written in ink on the margin orback of several of the drawings. I take this to mean that a patron whosename began with “F” had looked through Turner’s sketch-books at sometime after his return to London, and had selected certain subjects to becarried out from sketches thus marked. That this patron was Mr. Fawkesis established by the drawing made at Chamounix, which is inscribed inTurner’s handwriting “Mer de Glace, avec le Cabin de Blair” (page 22of the “St. Gothard and Mont Blanc” Sketch-Book in the NationalGallery). The finished water-colour now in the Farnley Hall Collection,entitled Blair’s Hut on the Montanvert and Mer de Glace, is simply anamplification of this sketch. Other subjects in these sketch-books whichTurner carried out for Mr. Fawkes are Bonneville, Sallanches, TheFalls of the Reichenbach, The Valley of Chamounix, The Fall of theStaubbach, The Lake of Lucerne from Flüelen, The Lake of Brienz withthe Ruins of the Castle of Ringgenberg, and Grenoble.

The first point of connection between Mr. Fawkes and Turner thus seemsto have been the scenery of Switzerland and not that of Yorkshire. In adescription I have seen of Farnley Hall and its treasures, written soonafter it came in

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