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NOTES AND MEMORANDA

respecting the

LIBER STUDIORUM

J. M. W. TURNER, R.A,

NOTES AND MEMORANDA

respecting the

LIBER STUDIORUM

J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

WRITTEN AND COLLECTED BY THE LATE

JOHN PYE,

landscape engraver.

EDITED, WITH ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS, AND AN
ILLUSTRATIVE ETCHING,

JOHN LEWIS ROGET,

LONDON:
JOHN VAN VOORST, Paternoster Row,
1879,

LONDON :
PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER,
MILFORD LANB, STRAND, W.C.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The chief matters comprised in the following
notes were originally intended by the writer to
be embodied in a magazine article, or a notice
in an art review ; but, the subject growing under
his hand, and it seeming desirable to record at
the same time various minor facts, which would
be inappropriate to that species of publication,
it has been thought expedient to deal with the
subject in the form of a separate volume.

CONTENTS,

CHAPTER I. PAGE
Introductory— John Pye's Memoranda of Turner — Pye not
one of the Engravers, but an Admirer and Collector
of the Liber — Public Appreciation of the Liber —
National Collections — Pye and Ruskin on ChiaroscUro
— "Tricks" of Light and Shade— Writers on the
Liber — Ruskin — Burlington Club — Hamerton — Wed-
more — Thombury — Rawlinson — Papers at the British
Museum — The Z«'^^r a Source of Instruction in Land
scape Composition  i
CHAPTER IL
Origin of the Liber — Its Intention and Scope — Classifica
tion of Landscape — Landseer's "Review" — Historical
Style — Pastoral Landscape — E, P, — "Elegant" or
" Epic " — Pastoral Class Analyzed — Meaning of
"Epic "in Art— Turner's "Death of Nelson"— His
Generalization — " Historical-Pastoral " — Varley on
Landscape — His "Epic Pastoral" — Identical with
Turner's E, P.— Pictorial Unity . . , -19
CHAPTER IIL
Style of Engraving — Mezzotint and Aquatint — Girtin's
Paris — Experiments — Lewis's Plate "Bridge and
Goats " — Turner's Letters — Technical Difficulties —
Engraver's Charges — Turner his own Etcher — Mr,
Rawlinson on Variations of Effect among Etchings —
Mr, Haden's Theory — Evidence of Lupton , , 46

viii Contents.

CHAPTER IV. PAGE
Other Engravers of the Liber — Charles Turner — His
Quarrel with Turner, R.A. — Its Causes — The Painter's
Payments in Kind — Insufficient Remuneration to
Engravers — Lupton — His First Plate — Clint's Ex
perience — Turner's own Work on the Plates — Manu
facture of Proofs — Various States — Pye's Opinion . 59

CHAPTER V.
Turner as a Publisher — Mixture of Proofs and Prints —
Rapid Wear in Printing — Mismanagement — Trade
Discount — Print Market — Sale of Proofs by Colnaghi
— Charles Turner's Stock — Mr. Griffith's — Rise in
Price — Evidence of Printsellers^Lahee's Set of
Proofs — Sale of Turner's Stock by the Court of
Chancery — Future Prospect  70

CHAPTER VI.
Liber Collections — Stokes's — Its Sale and Dispersion —
Estimated Value — Hawkins Collection — Thombuiy's
Valuation — ^Pye Collection — Hainpstead Conversa
zione — Sale to British Museum — Royal Academy^
Turner and the Clipstone Street Society — Dr. Percy's
Set at South Kensington — Mr. Taylor's Collection
— Pye's Description of his own Collection . . -91

APPENDIX.
List of Plates of the Series P. and E. P. .

NOTES AND MEMORANDA

RESPECTING THE

LIBER STUDIORUM

OF

J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

CHAPTER I.
Introductory — John Pye's Memoranda of Turner — Pye not one of the
Engravers, but an Admirer and Collector of the Liber — Public Apprecia
tion of the Liber — National Collections — Pye and Ruskin on Chiaroscuro
— " Tricks " of Light and Shade — Writers on the Liber — Ruskin —
Burlington Club — Hamerton — Wedmore — Thombury — Rawlinson — ¦
Papers at the British Museum — The Liber as a Source of Instruction in
Landscape Composition,
The recent appearance of a descriptive catalogue of
the Liber Studiorum of Turner affords an occasion,
which I have for some time desired, of putting
together in a form adapted to publication, some
memoranda written by the late Mr, John Pye, the
engraver, which were entrusted to me several years
ago for perusal, with that object in view,
I am desirous, at the same time, of correcting a
B

'yohn Pye's Memoranda.

misapprehension which seems to exist with regard
to the manuscripts in question,
Pye's long connection with Turner, as one of the
most celebrated, and in some respects the most per
fect, interpreter of the great painter's meaning,
through the medium of line engraving ; the mutual
high appreciation which was known to have existed
between these two artists, amounting in Pye's case
to something little short of adoration of Turner's
genius ; and the fondness and gusto with which the
old engraver, who was a capital story-teller, used
to relate and dwell on various little traits of the
painter's character ; coupled with hints thrown out
that he had committed to paper some unpublished
facts about Turner ; led to a prevalent belief that
at Pye's death, if not before, much interesting
matter would be revealed to the public respecting
the great artist's career. This expectation having
been referred to in an article by Mr. Wedmore in
the Academy of Feb. i, 1879, I on the Sth of the
same month addressed a letter to the editor of that
journal, which was published on the 15th, express
ing my regret that, under the following circum
stances, such expectation was not likely to be
realized. All the papers left by Mr. Pye which are
supposed by his family to have any bearing on the
subject of Turner's life or works, were, shortly after
Pye's death, placed by his executor in my hands
for the purpose above mentioned, I found them
to be very fragmentary documents ; and, after

Pye on Ttirner and Girtin.

examining and arranging them, came long ago to
the conclusion, that beyond a few facts connected
with the painter's works (more particularly the
Liber Studiorum), they contained little or nothing
of importance which was not already known to the
public. That it was Pye's intention to give to the
world a connected history of art, in which an
account of the life and works of Turner should
form a prominent feature, is, however, indicated by
the following draft of a title-page, which is among
the documents in question :
" Characteristics of British Art, and how in their
midst J, M, W, Turner and Thomas Girtin arose.
Chronologically arranged, together with a brief
notice of Turner's Liber Studiorum, and of the
latter part of his life. By John Pye, Correspond
ing Member of the Institute of France,"
With this object, Pye had evidently been engaged
after Turner's death, in a diligent collection of
material ; but he left the undertaking in a rudimen
tary state, and recorded next to nothing of his
personal recollections of the great painter. More
over, after the publication of Mr, Thornbury's
" Life of Turner " (unsatisfactory as that compila
tion was), there seems to have been little remaining
untold that the old engraver desired to impart to
posterity. It is, however, with the memoranda relating to
the Liber Studiorum, which, as containing a few
new facts of interest, form the above-mentioned
exception, that I have here exclusively to deal. B 2

Pye and the Liber.

With the production of that remarkable work,
Pye himself is not known to have had any con
nection.* He was purely and exclusively a line
engraver, and the Liber was engraved in an entirely
different manner, chiefly mezzotint. Although,
however, he held an exalted opinion of the superi
ority of the style which he himself practised, he
had a profound admiration for these plates, and was
never tired of descanting on their beauty. During
Turner's life-time he had been at much pains to
secure good impressions ; and, shortly before his
own death, he sold to the nation, at a moderate
price, the fine collection which he had then
acquired ; in the belief that by so doing he was
conferring an important boon to the public, in
setting before students of art a high standard of
excellence in landscape composition.
The issue of the Liber plates began in 1807, ^^"d
ended prematurely in i8i9,f when 71 f out of an
* It was erroneously stated, in a " Biographical Note " on John
Pye, prefixed to the catalogue of an " Exhibition of Engravings
by Birmingham Men," held at that town in the spring of 1877,
that he " executed well - known plates for ' Turner's Liber
Studiorum;'" but the error was, I believe, afterwards admitted
by the compiler in a letter to a local journal.
tMr. Hamerton, in his "Life of J, M. W. Turner, R.A. ,"
(p. 109,) says " 1816 " ; therein adopting one of the many mis
statements contained in the late Mr. Thornbury's book, bearing
the same title. The error first occurs in the original edition of
Thornbury's " Life," published in 1862, (vol. i, p. 272.) In the
second edition, dated 1877, (p. 493,) the author remodeled the
sentence, without correcting the date, although a full chronological
list of the plates is given in an appendix.
% Mr. Thombury, in a summary, appended to his " Life of

The Liber and the Public.

intended set of loo, had been completed; but until
after Turner's death in 1851, little was known of the
work, except by members of the author's profession
and a small circle of connoisseurs. It is only
since the* dispersion by Messrs. Christie & Co. in
1873, within a year of Pye's death, of the large
stock of copies, which had remained in the great
painter's hands till he died, and had then been taken
possession of by the Court of Chancery, that the
work has been much known to the general public.
Before that time, indeed, about fifty * of the brown
Turner," of Mr. Stokes's catalogue of Turner's engraved works,
sets down the number of plates as twenty-one only. Mr. Griffith
(Turner's agent and one of his executors), in commenting on the
general inaccuracy of Thornbury's book, in a letter to Pye (dated
Dec. 21, 1861) observes, however, " I think he is pretty close to
the mark in putting the collective number of engravings after
Turner at 800, because, although palpably wrong in setting down
the Liber pubUshed plates at twenty-one instead of seventy-one,
he has counterbalanced the error as far as figures go, by giving
seventy-five to Rogers's ' Italy ' instead of twenty-five." Both these
errors are, with many others, repeated in the later edition. \See
"The Life of J. M. W. Turner, R.A,," ist edition, vol. ii. p. 352 ;
2nd edition, p. 551.]
* There were fifty-one so exhibited, but one was for a plate
which has never been engraved. They were afterwards removed
to Trafalgar Square. Mr. Rawhnson writes: — "Not only are
they becoming utterly faded and in other ways deteriorated by
continual exposure, but the position given them leads to their
being constantly copied by students, who would surely learn
more of Turner's intentions in Liber Studiorum, if they studied
and copied a fine set of the Prints." ["Turner's Liber Studiorum;"
by W. G. Rawlinson, 1878, p. vii. «.J Since these words were
written, and possibly in deference to the opinion expressed by
their writer and by others before him, the drawings in question
have been removed from the general exhibition rooms, and

Liber Drawings.

drawings, made by Turner for the engravers to
work by, had been hung on the walls of a room in
the South Kensington Museum ; but the thousands
of visitors to that institution were unaware how
inferior many of those drawings are to the finished
engravings.
placed where, it is to be hoped, they will no longer be exposed to
the like injury, but where they are accessible to the public on a
special application.
Mr. Ruskin declares that they " are not to be considered as
Turner drawings at all. They are," he says, "merely hasty
indications of his intention, given to the engraver to guide him
in his first broad massing out of the shade on the plate. Turner
took no care with them, but put his strength only into his own
etching on the plate itself, which was repeated and elaborate on
the engraver's work. The finer impressions of the plates are
infinitely better than these so-called originals, in which there is
hardly a trace of Turner's power, and none of his manner. The
time bestowed in copying them by some of the students is wholly
wasted ; they should copy the engravings only, and chiefly those
which were engraved as well as etched by Turner himself."
[" Notes on the Turner Collection," 5th edition, 1 85 7, p. 4.] This
recommendation must, however, be valued in connection with the
same teacher's advice to students as to their method of using the
Liber plates, the object of which appears to be the training of
hand and eye to produce exact fac-similes of lines and shadows.
\See " The Elements of Drawing,'' pp. 132-138.]
Mr. Wedmore writes : — " In the Mount St. Gothard subject, in
the Dunstanborough, and in the Coast of Yorkshire, the drawings
are more impressive and powerful than the prints. The drawing
of the Falls of the Clyde has the light through the trees, as well as
upon the trees, as in one engraver's proof belonging to Mr,
Stopford Brooke ; and it gains thereby. In all the other drawings
for this series in the National Gallery, the effect is inferior to that
of the prints ; generally very markedly so, and of all perhaps
most markedly so in the exquisite and unsurpassed subject,
Severn and Wye — a subject well nigh worthless in the ' original

National Collections.

Of the prints themselves, two noble collections
are now the property of the nation ; one, in the Art
Library at South Kensington, containing a complete
set of fine impressions of the plates, in the first
state in which they were issued by Turner to the
public ; the other, in the Print Room of the British
Museum, larger and more interesting to the
connoisseur of engraving, and in some respects also
to the student of landscape art For in the latter,
which includes the Pye collection, there are more
examples of the progressive states of the plates ;
showing in various instances the artistic devices
employed Ijy the great painter to reinvigorate them
when worn ; and how he was ever labouring to
inspire them with fresh charms, under new effects of
light and shade.
It was chiefly in the mastery over light and
shade displayed by Turner in these designs that
Pye desired to hold them up as models for the
instruction of landscape painters and engravers.
The breadth and harmony of chiaroscuro, which
they exhibit when in a perfect state, were the
qualities above all others which recommended them
to John Pye. For the representation of light, and
the proper distribution of light and darkness within
the area of a picture, constituted, in Pye's opinion,
drawing.' The supremely beautiful print of this is wholly of
Turner's engraving." ["Studies in English Art," p. 172 «.J It
may suqjrise some readers to learn that this plate is marked by
Mr. Ruskin (" Elements of Drawing," p. 1 3 2 «) as " quite useless "
to students. But this opinion may be, in part, accounted for
by the writer's dislike to anything which suggests Claude.

Pye and Ruskin.

the very essence of graphic art. In this respect,
his teaching was opposed to that of Mr. Ruskin.
In the creed of the late Oxford professor,
chiaroscuro (in the ordinary sense of the term as
used by artists) is a kind of black art, to be
repudiated by modern painter^. Hence, the
eloquent praise which Mr. Ruskin has bestowed
upon some (but by no means all) of these plates,
leaves almost, if not entirely, untouched the per
vading beauty which Pye so much admired.
Jt is proper to take notice of this omission in Mr.
Ruskin's criticisms, because it may have had the
effect of diverting attention from some of the
qualities to which, in the eyes of persons who do
not subscribe to certain of that writer's theories, the
Liber plates owe an important share of their value.
There are, it is true, passages in the first volume of
his work on " Modern Painters," which seem to
recognize the value of light and shade, or chiaroscuro,
not only as an element of pictorial art, but as one
particularly cultivated by Turner. For example the
author writes (3rd edition, pp. 168-170) :
" I have before shown the inferiority and
unimportance in nature of colour, as a truth,
compared with light and shade. That inferiority is
maintained and asserted by all really great works of
colour ; but most by Turner's, as their colour is
most intense. Whatever brilliancy he may choose
to assume is subjected to an inviolable law of
chiaroscuro, from which there is no appeal.
.... He paints in colour, but he thinks in light

Ruskin on Chiaroscuro.

and shade ; and were it necessary, rather than lose
one line of his forms, or one ray of his sunshine,
would, I apprehend, be content to paint in black
and white to the end of his life." But in the next
chapter, the author takes especial pains to point
out that his remarks apply only to the painter's
truth (as a photographer, or imitator of natural
lights and shadows), and not at all to the pictorial
value of chiaroscuro as an element in landscape
composition. " My firm belief is," he there explains,
(p. 1 78,) " that though colour is inveighed against by
all artists, as the great Circe of art — the great trans
former of mind into sensuality — no fondness for it,
no study of it, is half so great a peril and stumbling-
block to the young student, as the admiration he
hears bestowed on such artificial, false and juggling
chiaroscuro, and the instruction he receives, based
on such principles as that given us by Fuseli, that
' mere natural light and shade, however separately or
individually true, is not always legitimate chiaro
scuro in art.' It may not always be agreeable to a
sophisticated, unfeeling, and perverted mind ; but
the student had better throw up his art at once, than
proceed on the conviction that any other can ever
be legitimate. I believe I shall be perfectly well
able to prove, in the following parts of the work,
that ' mere natural light and shade ' is the only fit
and faithful attendant of the highest art ; and that
all tricks — all visible, intended arrangement — all
extended shadows and narrow lights — everything, in
fact, in the least degree artificial, or tending to make

IO Chiaroscuro of the Liber.
the mind dwell upon light and shade as such, is an
injury, instead of an aid, to conceptions of high ideal
dignity," Now I maintain that no one possessing the sense
of form and quantity, and who can tell light from
darkness, can fail to perceive, on casting a glance
across Pall Mall, at Messrs. Colnaghi's window,
full (as it is at the time I write) of fine impressions
from the Liber plates, that every one of them
exhibits such an " arrangement " as Mr. Ruskin
denounces in the above words ; one that is "visible"
and " artificial," and obviously " intended " by the
artist. Each of these is an arrangement which
does unquestionably " tend to make the mind dwell
upon the light and shade as such j " yet the great
painter did not consider it to be beneath the " ideal
dignity" of any, even the grandest and most impres
sive, of the subjects which he treated. In a subse
quent volume (vol. 3, p. 146) the same writer defines
the " chiaroscuro " which Constable declared that he
regarded as essential to his pictures, as " the light
which has nothing to illumine, and shadow which
has nothing to relieve." " It is singular to reflect,"
continues this great master of the English tongue,
" what that fatal Chiaroscuro has done to art, in the
full extent of its influence," and in conclusion, he
enshrouds the subject in this gloomy and poetic
figure : — " It has been, not only shadow, but shadow
of Death ; passing over the face of ancient art, as
death itself might over a fair human countenance ;
whispering, as it reduced it to the white projections

Pye on Modern Water-Colour. 1 1
and lightless orbits of the skull, ' Thy face shall
have nothing else, but it shall have Chiaroscuro.' "
Contrast this with the following words of John
Pye's, in a letter * to his friend Dr. Percy : " You
are right as to the superiority of the knowledge of
nature in the drawings of Turner and Girtin having
acquired for them among the connoisseurs a pre
ference. Composition and chiaroscuro combined
in their works at the close of the last century
to acquire for them alike the reputation of having
founded the British School of water-colour paint
ing. But that knowledge of chiaroscuro, which
gave stamina, light, and space to the works of those
original men, has no existence in works of the first-
rate men of water-colour in the present day. The
effects of their works, with few exceptions, are based
in colour. Not a man-jack among them could
make an effect of chiaroscuro applicable to the
production of an engraving ! " It is not, be it
observed, merely imitative truth of light and shadow
that produces the " effect," but " composition and
chiaroscuro combined."
Mr. Hamerton takes exception to a still more
recent dictum of Mr. Ruskin's, "that all good
engraving ignores light and shade ; " observing, with
much force, that "this doctrine, if it were true,
would exclude from the rank of good engraving
the entire series of plates from Turner's works,
executed by the most eminent landscape-engravers
* The original, dated April 27, 1867, is in the possession of
Mr. Reid, the Keeper of Prints.

12 Rules of Composition.
of this century, for these engravers have never
ignored light and shade. Happily," he adds, " the
doctrine is not true." (" Life of Turner," p. 390.)
Happily, also, the Liber Studiorum comes within a
saving clause, which exempts it from the operation
of this formidable rule ; for the professor explains
that his words do not apply to mezzotint, which " is
properly to be considered as chiaroscuro drawing on
metal." ("Ariadne Florentina," Ruskin's Works,
vol. 7, p. 72.)
It is futile to deny that Turner, besides being
like Pye * an earnest student and observer of
light itself, was guided by abstract principles of
beauty in the composition of light and shade
within the boundaries of his pictures. It was his
thorough appreciation of the efficacy of rules,
founded on these principles, principles which are
implanted in our nature, f that enabled him to
express what he did express, in a pictorial form.
We may look at the plates in the Liber Studiorum
* " In Pye's opinion, the one great aim in landscape art is to
enable the spectator to see, as it were, into space ; ' and this,' he
said, ' can only be done by a perfect knowledge of light.' To
gain this knowledge, he himself would lie for hours on
Hampstead Heath studying the spaces, and the gradations
required to express them." \7he Spectator, Feb. 28, 1874.J
t " My notion of nature," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, " compre
hends not only the forms which nature produces, but also the
nature and internal fabric and organization, as I may call it, of
the human mind and imagination. The terms beauty, or nature,
which are general ideas, are but different modes of expressing the
same thing, whether we apply these terms to statues, poetry, or
pictures." ["Seventh Discourse."]

" Tricks" of Light and Shade. 13
for indications of Turner's views of life, and of
human pride, his hopelessness and sadness, and his
sense of humiliation and decay. We may trace in
them his keen perception of the phenomena of
nature, and his firm grasp of their various character
istics ; the growth of wood, the hardness of stone ;
the swell of waves, and the evanescent forms of
vapour. But the practical artist will do well to
remember that they are, at the same time, a set of
very careful " arrangements in brown," and to
observe how much of their effect upon the mind
is due to the so-called "tricks" of contrast and
¦gradation, of balance and harmony of parts and
masses, which preserve a unity in their variety, and
enabled the painter to place each subject plainly
and impressively before the spectator. Are not
these principles of light and shade exemplified
alike in the clair-obscur of the great Academician
and in the flowing periods of the " Oxford Grad
uate ?"
The above remarks are not made with a view to
depreciate the importance of Mr, Ruskin's observa
tions, on those qualities or points in the Liber
Studiorum which he has considered worthy of
notice, and sometimes of enthusiastic laudation.
The plates of the Liber (published and unpublished)
have afforded numerous illustrations of the theories
of the accomplished author of " Modern Painters,"
on art, on Turner, and on other subjects of human
interest ; insomuch that it is scarcely possible to think
of some of the designs, except in connection with

14 The Burlington Club.
that writer's witching discourse, or as adorned by
the vivid colours of his elucidation. As on nearly
all matters connected with Turner's art, Mr. Ruskin
remains the fullest and most varied writer on that
displayed in the Liber Studiorum. But the subject
has also proved attractive to other able pens, and
a little growth of literature is now springing up
around this monument erected by the great painter
between sixty and seventy years ago, to his own
genius. In 1872, the chief private possessors of Liber
prints, etchings, and drawings, united their re
sources to form a notable exhibition of the Liber
Studiorum, in its various states, at the Burlington
Fine Arts Club, in Savile Row ; and the elaborate
catalogue,* which accompanied the collection, was,
until last year, the most complete book of reference
on the subject. Besides a slight historical and de
scriptive sketch of the work, this catalogue contains
a large and interesting selection of illustrative re
marks and criticisms from the writings of Ruskin,
together with others of much value by Mr. Hamer
ton, from his elaborate treatise on " Etching and
Etchers," In Mr, Wedmore's agreeable volume of " Studies
in English Art," will be found a chapter on the
Liber, which contains an interesting and systematic
* It was privately printed, but the substance of it has been
reprinted with variations, in a catalogue published at Cambridge,
Mass. (1874.) There is a copy of the American edition in the
excellent Art Library at South Kensington.

Liber Critics. 15

account of the work and its workmen, together with
an intelligent and tasteful critique.
Turner's biographers of course devote some
space to the history of a work, the production of
which formed so important a feature in the great
artist's career ; but Thornbury's general inaccuracy
is so palpable, that it is not safe to rely upon his
sole testimony ; and Mr, Hamerton, although his re
marks have some special value (particularly where
he speaks with the authority of a learned expert as
to Turner's position and skill as an engraver), has
no novel fact to tell us, and is not unfrequently con
tent to adopt, without question, the erroneous state
ments of his predecessor.
Finally, we have Mr, Rawlinson's new catalogue,
which, if the information that it affords respecting
the several plates is reasonably correct (which I
have no cause to doubt), seems to supply what has
been long wanted by amateurs, whether students or
collectors, of the Liber Studiorum of Turner. It
is the first attempt to form a complete list of the
subjects and states of the plates (including the un
published designs). It gives, as far as practicable,
and in numerical order, the titles (both those en
graved and those which have been bestowed by
collectors and others) of the several plates ; a plain
description of each subject ; a list of known states
of each plate and its etching, noting their chief
points of distinction ; and a reference to the pre
sent place of each known drawing ; concluding in
nearly every case with' an original notice, in which

1 6 Rawlinson s Catalogue.
useful general information is combined with judi
cious criticism, and such citation of the writers
above mentioned as may be appropriate by way of
additional comment or illustration. The volume,
being printed on large and good writing paper, with
ample margins and blank half pages for additional
memoranda in manuscript, and being provided with
an alphabetical index, provides a point of concen
tration of present and future learning on the subject,
which must be invaluable to those for whose use
it is intended. What we are chiefly concerned
with here is an introductory chapter, of forty-seven
pages, comprising a brief historical account of the
production of the Liber, and some general notes
under the various heads of " Subjects," " Methods
of Engraving," " Deterioration in Printing," " Varia
tions in the Values of Liber," &c.
When Pye sold his collection to the British
Museum, he placed some of his own written memo
randa, together with other manuscripts respecting
the work, in the hands of Mr, Reid, the Keeper of
Prints, These documents seem to have previously
formed an integral part of the papers whereof the
rest are now before me ; but having acquired the
character of public records, some of them have
been reprinted in Mr, Rawlinson's book, and to these
I shall have particularly to refer. The other memo
randa at the Print- Room relate for the most part to
individual impressions in the Pye collection.
In the presence of these sources of information,
it is not my purpose to attempt in the following

Lessons of the Liber. 17
pages anything in the nature of an exhaustive
account of the Liber Studiorum, or to afford aid to
collectors in the acquisition of rare " states ; " nor
have I the intention of indulging in original criti
cism upon Turner or his work, I am content
to repeat so much only of what has already
been told by others of the history of the Liber,
as will render intelligible such further facts as
are brought to light by the Pye papers ; to which,
however, I venture to add a few inferences of
my own, supporting them by authorities not
hitherto cited.
At the same time I am desirous of recording my
own conviction that, in some important respects, the
value of the Liber Studiorum, has never been fully
appreciated. It has never, as it seems to me, been
fairly regarded by writers, or I fear by art-students
either, as, what its author declared it to be, " An
Illustration of Landscape Composition." Ingenious
critics and brilliant essayists have analyzed the
choice of subjects, and scanned the incidents por
trayed, in order to draw their various inferences
respecting the artist's proclivities, and his views of
men and things. Amateurs have dwelt fondly on
the sentiments that touched them most. Print-
collectors have found a wide scope for learning and
observation of the distinctive marks of " states "
and rare impressions. The fluctuations of the
Liber-vs\-d.x\js.t have afforded lively interest to specu
lative minds. But of " Landscape Composition," as
taught by Turner through the Liber, we hear next
c

1 8 Unfashionable Ari.
to nothing.* Disquisitions on the artistic har
monies of form and mass, on breadth, balance,
chiarosctiro, and such mysteries of the studio, are
not inviting reading to the general public ; and,
moreover, the regard for such matters has gone out
of fashion with art-critics, and with artists too.
Instruction in art being now chiefly confined to the
copying or imitation of objects, with less attention
than was paid in Turner's earlier time to the rela
tion of one part of a picture to another, the prin
ciples of composition, to be acquired by a study
of the Liber, are no longer much in request. A
time may possibly come, however, when Turner's
brighter colours shall have faded away, and there
shall be little left to reveal his splendour to a future
generation, besides his engraved works. It may
then be discovered that John Pye was right in hold
ing that the great painter's chief art lay in his
" government " of the " clair-obscur."
* The late Mr. J. D. Harding, indeed, in a work addressed to
art-students of the last generation, pointed out the superiority of
Turner's composition in the Liber Studiorum to Claude's in the
Liber Veritatis, and to that of the " old masters " generally,
particularly as regards the expression of space. \See " The
Principles and Practice of Art," 1845, P- ^SO

Origin of the Liber. 19

CHAPTER II.
Origin of the Liber — Its Intention and Scope — Classification of Landscape —
Landseer's "Review" — Historical Style — Pastoral Landscape — E. P. —
"Elegant" or "Epic" — Pastoral Class Analyzed — Meaning of "Epic"
in Art — Turner's "Death of Nelson" — His Generalization — "Historical-
Pastoral" — Varley on Landscape — His "Epic Pastoral" — Identical with
Turner's E. P.— Pictorial Unity.
Pye gives the following account of the origin and
intent of the Liber Studiorum : —
" The patronage of native artistic talent in
England, which, till the early part of the reign of
George the Third, was limited to portraiture, had
not then extended to landscape art more elevated
than topographical subjects, i.e., views of the resi'
dences of the nobility and wealthy English ; castles,
&c., &c. That Turner was well acquainted with
this state of English art patronage before entering
upon the Liber speculation, cannot be questioned ;
for being influenced by a desire to live with pos
terity in large works of poetic or historic subjects,
he had then painted of such works for sale (but
which nobody would buy) more than his gallery
could hold," Instead, therefore, of painting more
pictures " to increase the dead stock in hand, he, in
1807, entered upon the Liber Studiorum." He
commenced that work " in consequence of having
deficiency of employment," and "to demonstrate
® c 2

20 Liber Veritatis.

that in a work of elementary composition and
chiaroscuro " he " could delineate everything that is
visible beneath the sun,"
The circumstances under which the scheme was
first suggested to the painter's mind, and which led
him to choose the particular style of art adopted in
the publication, are stated in the following words in
a letter to Pye from Mr. Charles Turner, the en
graver most largely employed by his great name
sake in the work in question, " As you are collect
ing information respecting \!a.^Liber Studiorum of my
most worthy and talented friend, J, M. W, Turner,
permit me to say that it was first thought of at
the house of his friend, Mr. Wells, as a companion
to Claude's Liber Veritatis,* and that the first draw
ing was made for it in his parlour (at Addiscomb)."
" Mr. Wells," adds Pye, " at whose house the
Liber was projected, was draughtsman at the Mili
tary College, Addiscomb. Mr, Turner, when about
seventeen years of age, was introduced to him by
Sir Robert Ker Porter. That Mr. Turner's inti-

* The first two volumes, only, of Earlom's famous series of
mezzotints after Claude's sketches and studies for his pictures had
then been published. They are dated 1777 ; and for them, says
Pye, " the public are indebted to the liberality of three successive
Dukes of Devonshire. The third volume was published by
Hurst and Robinson in 1819. Each of the three volumes
contains 100 subjects." A selection of twenty-four of the subjects
were re-engraved on steel, by various engravers (some of whom
had engraved for Turner's Liber), and published in 1824, under
the title " Beauties of Claude Lorraine ; " and some reproductions
in aquatint, by L. Caracciolo, were brought out in Rome, in 181 5.

Scope of th& Liber. 2 1
macy with Mr. Wells's family continued to the end
of his life, is evinced by his having by his will left
a legacy of ;^ioo to each of Mr. Wells's three
daughters." Mr. Thombury gives a statement by one of
Mr. Wells's daughters that the Liber entirely owed
its existence to her father's persuasion, and that it
was he who suggested the division of the subject
into classes. She also says, " the drawings for the
first number were made in our cottage" (not at
Addiscomb, but) " at Knockholt."
On the scope of the Liber Studiorum, and the
principles of landscape art which it is meant to in
culcate, it is to be regretted that Pye's memoranda
throw but little further light. " When," Pye writes,
" I told him I desired to have a copy of the Liber,
for that I liked it, he said, ' What is there in it that
you like ? ' ' The variety of effects,' was my reply.
' There's nothing else. I want something more
than that,' said he," This anecdote appears to have
been preserved as evidence of the great artist's
preference of line-engraving for landscape.
On the value and interest to be attached to the
Liber (in the state in which Turner left it) as an
illustration of the history of landscape art, Pye ex
presses himself as. follows : — -
Had Lewis's plate* been published when it
was executed, i.e., in the first part of the Liber, the
subjects of that work " would have been arranged
somewhat in chronological order, and have shown
* The " Bridge and Goats."

2 2 Prospectus.

the progressive development of Turner's power,
during the eleven years the Liber was in course of
publication, i.e.,, from 1807 till 1818.* During that
time it was," he adds, " that Turner threw off all
deference to the works of Claude, Gainsborough,
Wilson, and others, to repose solely on his own
learning and genius. . . The neglect of the
public caused him to abandon the work when four
teen parts (seventy-one subjects) had been pub
lished, notwithstanding some twenty other subjects
were in progress of execution." He had, however,
thrown into it " not merely the elements of his
knowledge of form and chiaroscuro, but evidence of
his genius in the art of historic and poetic design."
That Turner did intend the series to have some
illustrative meaning as a whole seems to be proved
not only by his observation, quoted by Mr. Ruskin,
" What is the use of them but together ? " when he
heard of a special value being set on particular
prints ; but also by the form of the title and
announcement of the work.
A prospectus was issued, in 1807, in the follow
ing words : — " Proposals for the publishing one hun
dred Landscapes, to be designed and etched by J. M.
W. Turner, R.A., and engraved in Mezzotinto ;" and
further it says : — " It is intended in this publication
to attempt a classification of the various styles of
landscape, viz., the historic, mountainous, pastoral,
marine, and architectural," Also, on the grey paper
» * The last number was dated Jariuary i, 1819.

Classification of Landscape. 23

covers for the parts are printed the words, " No.
of Liber Studiorum, Illustrative o{ Landscape Com
positions, viz.. Historical, Mountainous, Pastoral,
Marine, and Architectural,"
Mr. Rawlinson states* that "no particulars are
known of any advertisement of the Liber in its
earlier stages." But I find the above " proposals "
quoted in a short-lived critical journal called The
Review of Publications in Art, which was pulalished
in 1808, under the editorship of John Landseer,t
the engraver. The passage in which they are thus
referred to has a direct bearing on Turner's classifi
cation of the Liber subjects. It occurs in a notice
of the pictures then on view in his newly-opened
gallery. "We conceive," says the reviewer, | "that Mr.
Turner will not find it easy to assign to some of
the pictures which he this year exhibits, decided
places under the new classification of landscape
scenery which he has recently ushered forth in the
prospectus of his ' Liber Sttidiorum.' His union of
the Thames and Isis may without impropriety be
called • pastoral ; ' but in his Eton College the
building is too far off for him to call it an ' archi
tectural ' landscape ; neither is it ' mountainous,'
' pastoral,' nor ' marine ' (at least we cannot sup
pose that two figures angling from a boat will bring
it with propriety under this class) ; neither is it
what Mr. Turner would call ' historical ' landscape,
* p. xxix. t Sir Edwin Landseer's father.
X pp. 154, 155.

24 Landseer s " Review."
" We shall, doubtless, be glad to see what an artist
of Mr, Turner's mind may have to say on the sub
ject of classifying ' the various styles of landscape ; '
but if he has specified all those styles in his Pros
pectus, we conceive that he will find it expedient (if
not necessary) to increase or diminish the number.
"He has doubtless remarked that a just classifica
tion of landscape scenery, if it met with general
concurrence, would be a great help to memory. It
certainly would ; and moreover (besides other facili
ties) a great step towards rendering the mysteries of
refined art more conducive than at present they are
to the pleasures of colloquial intercourse, and collo
quial intercourse in its turn, by being rendered more
critical, more conducive than at present to the ad
vancement of art ; but should such a classification
be attempted without being arranged on such peren
nial principles as can only be found in the lasting
features of Nature, it will rather tend to embarrass
and confound, than to elucidate."
The writer of the above observations did not ap
pear to have examined the plates themselves of the
Liber Studiorum, of which (according to the dates)
two numbers were already published, or he might,
perhaps, have had less difficulty in finding a place
in Turner's system for " Eton College ; " if, as I
presume, it was the design afterwards engraved by
William Radclyffe in the " England and Wales "
series. For the Liber itself, from the very first
number, embraces one more class beyond the five
which were specified in the prospectus, and this

" Historical" Style. 25
might fairly include the treatment in question of
" Eton College."
The particular categories to which the several
plates belong are indicated (as everybody knows
who is at all acquainted with the work) by capital
initial letters placed on their upper margins, H
standing for Historical, M for Mountainous or
Marine, and so forth.
Among these five divisions, there is but little
difificulty in perceiving the fitness of the allotment.
Mr, Hamerton, indeed, seems to consider* that the
range of subjects embracing poetry and fiction
under the letter H, is a wider one than can be
justified under the name of " History." But I
believe that the term " Historical Painting," which
is now falling into disuse, was commonly employed
in Turner's time to include such subjects, being not
merely applied to the pictorial record of facts.
Questions of greater nicety present themselves,
however, respecting the style of landscape to which
the painter assigns the name of " Pastoral," Here,
in the lettering, he introduced a subdivision into
two classes indicated by the letters P. and E. P.,
without any further explanation, than is to be
inferred from the characters of the plates themselves,
of the meaning of the new initial E. Of the
published plates, which alone are marked by letters
of classification, fourteen belong to one and fourteen
to the other of these two subdivisions of the
pastoral style. It is worthy of observation that
* See " Life of J. M. W. Turner," p. 107.

26 "Pastoral" Landscape.
these were invariably issued in pairs, one P. and
one E. P. being contained in each of the fourteen
numbers of the work ; as if Turner intended to
draw, on every such occasion, a distinction between
the two subdivisions referred to.* What are the
full, words intended by this symbol E. P., and what is
the style of landscape composition, which the great
painter so carefully set apart as a distinct class ?
All. modern writers, as far as I am aware, on the
Liber Studiorum, but on what authority I know not,
interpret the letters E. P., as " Elegant Pastoral."
Mr. Thornbury \ does so in his " Life of Turner."
* Mr. Rawlinson reprints an advertisement of the eleventh and
twelfth numbers of ^s. Liber as published (Feb. i, 1816) "In
continuation of the second volume of this work, intended as an
illustration of Landscape Composition, classed as follows : —
Historical, Mountainous, Pastoral, Marine, and Architectural.
Each number," adds the advertisement, " contains five engravings
in mezzotinto; one subject of each class:" &c. It will be
observed, that although half the proposed work had appeared,
still there was no mention made of a further division of Pastoral
into P. and E. P. But the advertisement is inaccurate in other
respects. Number 11 did not continue, but commenced the
second volume ; and (except in the cases of the pastoral, whereof
two examples were, as I have said, always given, one of each sub
class,) the rule that there should be one subject of each class, was
never followed in any single number of the whole series.
t According to Thornbury (second edition, p. 491), Mr. Wells's
daughter, in relating the story of the origin of the Liber, named
" Elegant Pastoral " as one of the headings originally suggested
by her father to Turner ; but, it does not seem to be pretended
that the exact words used are reported. The passage is as
follows : — "My father said, ' Well, divide your subject into
classes — say, Pastoral, Marine, Elegant Pastoral, and so forth ; '
which was accordingly done.''

"Elegant" or "Epic" 27

The compiler of the "Burlington Catalogue" does
so, and is therein followed by the American tran
scriber ; and Mr. Rawlinson adopts the phrase
without question in his " Description and Cata
logue." Mr, Hamerton, however, although he does
not seem to doubt the correctness of the common
interpretation, and regards the "Elegant Pastoral"
as being properly a subdivision of the " Pastoral,"
observes, at the same time, that the distinction is
not intelligible in relation to the subjects indicated.
Perceiving, moreover, that in some cases the term
" Classical Landscape " might be properly applied
in the place of " Elegant Pastoral," he surmises that
some distinction of this sort was what Turner in
tended. " We can see a reason," he says, " for the
classification in some instances, but not in all. It
is probable that if the series of plates had been
carried out to the full extent which Turner in
tended, the classical subjects, for which he had
always a predilection, would have been more numer
ous amongst those which he called ' elegant.' " *
Pye, however, assigns another adjective to the
initial E. He gives, as the full form of E. P., not
"Elegant Pastoral," but " Epic Pastoral." It seems
to me that this interpretation is at least as plausible
as that commonly received ; and that, in the sense
in which the epithet was used in Turner's time, it
indicates more closely the distinction to which Mr.
Hamerton refers under the term " classical pas-
* "Life of Turner," pp. io6, 107.

28 " p." and " E. p."
toral." . To form an opinion on this point, however,
it is necessary not only to deal with the subject
at some length, but to enter into details respecting
the plates included in these two divisions of the
pastoral class.
Taking the engravings in question two by two, in
the order of their publication,* there can, I think,
in but few cases, be any difficulty in perceiving that
the members of each pair belong to two distinct
styles of art, of which that indicated by the letters
E. P., aspires in some degree to a poetical ideal,
while that marked singly with a P. depicts the more
prosaic realities of British rural life. The distinc
tion is admirably illustrated in the very first pair of
designs. The painter selected for the opening of
the series the two plates familiarly known as " Bridge
and Cows," and "Woman and Tambourine." In
these, both in subject and treatment, he appears to
have intentionally followed the precedents of two of
the then acknowledged masters of landscape art, as
though he meant to contrast their respective styles.
Under P. he shows us the rustic landscape of Gains
borough, and under E. P., he conforms to the ideal
of Claude, as exhibited in the Liber Veritatis. And
so, throughout the series, there is a sufificiently
marked contrast between the pair of plates thus
lettered, and issued together in the same number.
Even without this special contrast, it is generally
easy (except in one or two cases, to be mentioned
* A schedule of them is given in an appendix to these pages.

" p." and " E.. p." 29
below) to assign to its alloted category any single
plate of either series. No one, for example, would
expect to see the letters E. P. over the " Strawyard,"
" Farmyard with Cock," " Juvenile Tricks," " Young
Anglers," or " Hedging and Ditching ; " and, on the
other hand, whatever those letters mean, they seem
to be typically applied to the " Bridge and Goats," *
and other distinctly Claudesque landscapes.
We may examine the two series in respect either
of the objects depicted, or of the artist's sentiment,
and his manner of dealing with them. Of the
E. P. series, some eight or nine may be regarded
either as direct imitations of Claude, both in
subject and treatment, or as versions of subjects
chosen from English scenery by reason of a special
adaptability to such treatment. Examples of the
latter are the " Wye and Severn," " Twickenham,"
and " Isis." There is nothing of this kind under
the head of P., or the simply pastoral landscape.
Of that series, ten out of the fourteen are modern
rustic subjects taken from every-day life at home.
But rural incidents of a like nature are not excluded
from the E. P. plates. They occur in the fore
grounds of " Okehampton Castle," " St. Catherine's
Hill," and "Chepstow." Similarly, ruins of ancient
buildings, although so commonly to be found
among the E. P. subjects as to raise a presumption
that they are an almost essential element in that
class of landscape, are as conspicuous in three of
the P. series also. It is in the cross infusion, in a
* The subject selected by Turner as the first to be engraved.

30 " p." and " E.. P."
few cases, of these two elements, that the difficulty
above mentioned arises, respecting the apportion
ment of a few of the plates. Why, it may be
asked, are " Winchelsea," " East Gate, Winchelsea,"
and " Norham Castle,"* marked " P." simply, while
"Okehampton," "St. Catherine's Hill," and "Chep
stow," are placed in the " E. P." series ? In all of
them, cows, or sheep, or rustic figures are in the
foreground, and an abbey or a castle rises beyond.
"Norham" (P.) and "Chepstow" (E. P.) afford
between them a problem, to which the solution is
exceptionally obscure.
When, indeed, we look at the prevailing sentiment
and treatment of the two series of subjects, the
difficulty is somewhat lessened. There is a marked
contrast between them in respect of the mental
states which they are made to induce. The scenes
in series P. are generally suggestive of life, move
ment, and active exertion ; while the feeling which
pervades the E. P. is always that of repose. Storm
and sunshine alternate in the former, while, in the
latter, the chastened calm of the landscape seems
but a reflex of the placid sky. And the human
incidents accord with these opposite sentiments.
* These three (together with "Raglan Castle" of the E. P,
series) are erroneously included in the volume lettered " Architec
tural and Historical Subjects " in the series of photographic repro
ductions of the Liber pubhshed by the Autotype Company. An
inaccuracy also occurs in the title, whereby the Liber is said
to be " reproduced from the original etchings " : whereas these are
photographs of the mezzotint prints, often from late and altered
states of the plates.

" p." and " E. p." 31
In " Okehampton," the cowherd pipes on one side
of the road, while the kine ruminate on the other.
In " St. Catherine's Hill," the team are returning
from their day's work, the milk-maid tends the cows,
and the sheep repose on the hill-side. In " Chep
stow " (as in the " Clyde ") the principal figures are
a group of bathers.* Compare with these, or with
the leisurely straggling of the goats and goatherds
in their passage across the bridge in Lewis's plate,
the action of the highland drovers and their herd in
" Solway Moss," or the shepherds and their flock,
hurrying over the rough ground and among the
ruined walls of " East Gate, Winchelsea," f
* Mr. Ruskin's principal objection to the Arcadian landscapes
of Claude, seems to be of a negative character. They are not
disagreeable enough to satisfy the philosopher's views as to the
province of art. Claude " may," he says, " by such tenderness as
he possesses, and by the very fact of his banishing painfulness,
exercise considerable influence over certain classes of minds ; but
this influence is almost exclusively hurtful to them." [" Modern
Painters," vol. 5, p. 252.] Clearly, the wisdom, which Mr. Ruskin
would propagate through the medium of landscape, is not of the
kind of which it has been said : — " Her ways are ways of
pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."
t Mr. Wedmore observes that Gainsborough and Claude, under
whose inspiration the first and second plates of the Liber were
designed, " had painted the landscape of pleasure. Turner," he
adds, " was to paint that in its turn, but chiefly the landscape of
conflict  Conflict with the hard conditions of life, with
the inclemencies of Nature, with the exactions of men— conflict
between man and man, between man and beast — conflict, if you
can call it so, between the passive earth and the marshalled forces
of the sky — these were the things that most impressed the mind
of Turner, and these in Liber Studiorum find their supreme
expression." [" Studies in English Art," pp. 179, 180.]

"Pr and "E.P."

Another characteristic of the P, series is that
the interest as a rule lies in the foreground or
nearer part of the landscape. Where a glimpse of
distance is introduced, it seems in general to be no
more than is necessary to prevent a sense of con
straint within too narrow a space, A loophole is
thus left for escape, but the eye is, for the time, held
by the nearer objects. These are evidently meant
by the artist to engage the spectator's chief attention.
Even " Solway Moss," which contains much of the
" mountainous " element, and includes an extended
range of distant space, is no clear exception to the
rule ; for the level marsh and the herd which cross
it form the main subject of the picture. To these
the hills and the storm, however grandly suggested,
are background and accessory only. Had the painter
intended to lead the eye away to the distant high
lands, he would probably have reversed the whole
course of the action, and made the line of cattle
move in that direction, instead of towards the
observer. In the E. P. landscapes, on the other hand, the
prospect is generally expanded over a larger area,
and the eye attracted to the horizon, or upward to
the sky. Such subjects as " Okehampton Castle,"
" St, Catherine's Hill," " Chepstow," and " Raglan,"
are seeming, but not real, exceptions ; for in all of
them the old building is sufficiently remote to take
the place of distance, and it moreover forms a
poetical object to which the interest is chiefly
directed. The same may be said of the waterfall

"P." and "E. P." 33
in the " Clyde," The view of Eton College
criticized in Landseer's Review, is a composition
which might have come under the same category as
these. Still, it must be admitted that, in particular
examples, the two classes approach each other so
nearly as to be almost undistinguishable.
In a few examples we observe some single
element which the artist may have considered
sufficient to raise the design from the lower to
the higher category. In the " Twickenham "
view, the classic alcove (probably in the grounds
of Pope's villa) from which the plate is some
times named, supported by the dignified grace
of the nearer foliage, gives an air of refinement, to
a limited subject, and would justify the title
" Elegant," a term which does not accord with the
homely buildings in the rear. The old castle walls,
with the evening light streaming through its bare
mullions, elevate the subject called " Raglan," from
what would otherwise be a study of tangled foliage,
into a poetic idyl. It is noteworthy that this plate,
to which Turner gave no name, but assigned the
letters E. P., was issued as the companion and
contrast to " Norham Castle " (P,), where the ruin
seems to be chiefly employed as a square form,
and a mass of shade to heighten the radiance of
the sky.
In many cases the word "Elegant" seems
entirely inappropriate. Where, for example, is the
elegance of the "Hindoo Worshipper," "Woman
at a Tank," " Bridge" and Goats," or " Magdalen in
D

34 E. P.
Solitude " ? — unless, indeed. Turner considered that
the mere transfer of a subject from England to
Italy, (as in the closely * contrasted plates of " Win
chelsea " and " Bridge and Goats,") had the effect of
impressing that quality upon it.
Surely, it would be easy to suggest various other
words more expressive of the difference between
the two styles, and beginning with an E. ; as,
for example, "Elevated,"! "Early," or "Eclectic
Pastoral." Mr. Ruskin, J regarding the style of
Claude as antiquated, might prefer " Exploded " or
* The grouping and action of the figures and animals seem to
be intentionally the same in each of these plates, which were
issued together,
t Since writing the above sentence I have accidentally met
with a passage in which the first of these epithets is used in a
parallel case (and with a capital E) by the great painter himself.
It is in a letter, written by Turner in 1810 or 181 1, in answer to
one from John Britton, the antiquary, respecting some descriptive
letter-press which that gentleman had written to accompany Pye's
celebrated engraving of " Pope's Villa," in " The Fine Arts of the
Enghsh School," a landscape coming distinctly within the category
E. P. of the Liber classification. Turner begins thus : — ¦" Sir, I
rather lament that the remark which you read to me when I
called in Tavistock Place is suppressed, for it espoused the part
of Elevated Landscape against the aspersio[ns] of map mak[ers']
criticism ; but no doubt you are better acquainted with the nature
of p[ublica]tion, and mine is a mistaken zeal." The correspond
ence is printed in the second edition of Thornbury's " Life of
Turner," p. 333. The spaces between brackets are there left
blank, and here filled in by way of conjecture.
X Of the twelve plates which Mr. Ruskin denounces as " quite
useless " to students of drawing, six belong to the E. P. class.
\See " Elements of Drawing," p. 132 n.] I am not acquainted
with any passage in which that great exponent of Turner's mean
ing professes to interpret the letters E. P.

"Elegant Pastoral." 35
" Effete," or perhaps " Engravers' Pastoral." In an
" Elegant Pastoral," we should rather look for the
artificial court fancies of poets and artists of the
Watteau school ; what the author * of " The
Sketcher," called " the smoking, piping, cocked hat,
and flowered shepherds of French crockery," the
"very reverse," as he says, of his own ideal
painter, Caspar Poussin. In the Liber Studiorum
the view of the sham temple of Isis, in Petworth
Park, comes the nearest, perhaps, to this kind of
fashionable elegance, but, even here, there are no
figures or files champitres, the only living things
being a small bird and a solitary peacock. It was
a kind of sentimentality with which Turner had
little or no sympathy.
* The Rev, John Eagles. The following passage from that
thoughtful and agreeable, but now old-fashioned, writer on art,
should on the other hand be quoted as an example of the use of
the word " elegance," which seems to accord with its common
acceptation in reference to the Liber. He remarks that, although
in the landscapes of Claude there is " always a certain cast of
elegance, and pastoral elegance, it is of an age long after the
golden." Mr. Ruskin uses the same epithet in relation to the sentiment
of Claude's landscapes, in the following passage : — "Although he
often introduces romantic incidents and mediaeval as well as
Greek or Roman personages, his landscape is always in the true
sense classic — everything being ' elegantly ' (selectingly or taste
fully), not passionately, treated. The absence of indications of
rural labour, of hedges, ditches, haystacks, ploughed fields,
and the like; the frequent occurrence of ruins of temples,
or masses of unruined palaces ; and the graceful wildness of
growth in his trees, are the principal sources of the 'elevated'
character which so many persons feel in his scenery," [" Modern
Painters," vol, 5, p, 250.]
D 2

36 Epic Painting.

Let us now examine the claims of John Pje's
interpretation of E. P. as " Epic Pastoral."
It is by no means easy to define the meaning of
this word " Epic,'" I do not find it mentioned in
any dictionary as applied to painting. It is the
epic poem alone which is dealt with by lexico
graphers, who usually treat the word "epic," as
nearly synonymous with " heroic," In this sense, it
clearly cannot be applied to Turner's pastorals. But
it certainly was employed in relation to painting by
artists early in the present century. Indeed Pye's
own use of it is evidence in point. As late as
the year 1832, an article on "Character and
Expression in Epic Painting" appeared in the
" Library of the Fine Arts " (vol. 4, p. 50), in
which the term is treated throughout as one in
recognized use. The writer's remarks, unfortunately,
do not supply a definition of " epic painting," and
he does not appear to have had the department
of landscape under consideration. Another ex
ample, and an interesting one, of the employment
of the word in question, occurs in a criticism of one
of Turner's own pictures at the very time of his
issue of the first numbers of the Liber Studiorum.
In John Landseer's "Review" above quoted, the
following remarks were made upon the great
painter's " Battle of Trafalgar and Death "of
Nelson," exhibited at the British Institution in 1808,
and now in the National Gallery,* which the
* This picture is not to be confounded with Turner's other
" Battle of Trafalgar " at Greenwich Hospital, in which, however.

Turner's "Death of Nelson." 37,
reviewer enthusiastically designates as " in every
sense of the word, \S\q. first picture of the kind that
has ever to our knowledge been exhibited."
" It might not, perhaps," he continues, " be im
proper, as this picture is new in its kind, to call it a
British epic picture. It was the practice of Homer
and the great epic poets in their pictures, to
detail the exploits or sufferings of their heroes,
and to generalize or suggest the rest of the battle,
or other accompaniment; and Mr. Turner, in the
picture before us, has detailed the death of his hero,
while he has suggested the whole of a great naval
victory; which we believe has never before been
attempted, in a single picture  While he
has brought together all those leading /fi;t/'.y which
mark the battle of Trafalgar, and the death of our
great and gallant Admiral, he has either painted or
suggested all those circumstances of a great and
dreadful sea-fight, which shall rouse the hearts of his
countrymen to deeds of naval heroism, or melt
them with pity,"*
This kind of pictorial generalization to which the
reviewer has here given the name of " epic," is one

Thornbury, using the same word, says, " Turner has, with epical
grandeur, aggregated the events of several different hours."
["Life of Turner," second edition, p. 429-] Mr. Hamerton
agrees with the eariier biographer in condemning the latter picture
as inartistic, and in describing it as "always an intensely
unpopular picture with sailors." ["Life of Turner," p. 120.]
Mr. Ruskin gives a very high rank to both of these pictures.
[" Notes on the Turner Gallery, 1856," ist edition, p. 78.]
* " The Review of Publications in Art," p. 83.]

38 Epic Landscape.

that Turner afterwards largely employed in the
great development of topographic art of which he
was the author. But I must confess myself unable
to translate E. into " epic," in the sense in which the
word is used in the passage just quoted. It may be
contended, however, that the reviewer is confessedly
applying the word to a new class of objects (to
painting instead of poetry), rather than employing
it in a recognized manner.
It is true that in neither of these cases is the
term in question applied to landscape simply. That
it was so used, instances enough may probably be
found ; but it will suffice to cite the two following,
as bearing on its supposed employment by Turner.
A writer in 1831, in the " Library ofthe Fine Arts"
(vol, 2, p. 277), without referring specifically to the
Liber Studiorum, or its apportionment of subjects,
but possibly having that work in his mind, pro
poses, as a classification of Landscape, the following
divisions : — " Epic, Pastoral, Domestic, and Topo
graphical ; together with Marine." Here, it will be
observed, " Epic " is not made, as Turner makes
E. P., a subdivision of " Pastoral," but is a distinctly
separate class. And, comparing the whole system
with Turner's, we have to find places in the above
categories for the divisions which he calls "His
torical," and "Architectural." It cannot, I think, be
doubted, that " Epic " was meant by this writer to
comprise the " Historical " landscape of Turner,
and that " Topography " would include "Architec
ture ; " for there are no other of the heads under

Historical-Pastoral. 39
which they could be included with propriety. Re
membering also that theauthor of the Liber marks
with an " H " scenes from poetic fiction as well as
those from history proper, it is not easy to perceive
what further kind of subject could be included
under the name of " Epic."
So far it would seem that " Epic " and " Histori
cal " landscape, if not the same thing, were very
nearly identical,* being a kind of composition in
which the natural elements commonly comprised
under the name of " Landscape " were mainly used
as a vehicle of expression of divine or human action
of an elevated character. It is as clear, however,
that if Turner put " E. " for " Epic," he did not
imply a use of the word in that sense. Such kind
of composition he marks with an H. " Historical-
Pastoral " was indeed named by Polonius, as within
the dramatic repertory of the Danish players, and
many a scene from Shakspere might have sug
gested an effective landscape belonging to that cate
gory. But, except in the frequent introduction of
ruins, "which is not, as we have seen, peculiar to
these subjects, and a few antique figures, there is
little or none of the historic element in the class of
plates marked E. P.
The second example above referred to of the use
* Mr. Ruskin, in the Introduction to his " Notes on his Draw
ings by the late J. M. W. Turner, R.A." calls the " Fifth Plague
of Egypt," exhibited in 1800 (of which subject there is a plate
in ihe Liber, marked " H.") Turner's "first sacred and epic
picture,"

40 Varley on Landscape.
of the word " epic," as applied to landscape, is, how
ever, directly in point, and, as far as it goes, an
exact parallel to that of the letter E. by Turner, It
is contained in an admirable work by John Varley,
entitled, " A Treatise on the Principles of Land
scape Design ; " a book of the old school, contain
ing some very practical instruction of a kind now,
as it seems to me, greatly undervalued by students
and critics in art. The earlier numbers were pub
lished while the Liber Studiorum was in progress,
and the third is illustrated by a plate, dated
Aug. 25, 1816, executed in aquatint in imitation of
the author's sepia drawings, by F, C, Lewis, the
same engraver whom Turner first employed upon
the Liber. The plate in question contains, one
above the other, two landscape subjects, much in
the style, and nearly of the size, of the Liber
plates. The upper one is distinguished by the title
" Epic,'' and the whole plate, comprising the two
subjects, has, engraved under it, the general title
" Pastoral." The full descriptions of the classes of
composition illustrated by the two examples are,
therefore, " Pastoral," and " Epic Pastoral."* It
needs no more than a glance at these two com
positions, purposely contrasted, as they are, upon
a single page, to consign them, under Turner's
* In the accompanying letter-press " Epic " and " Pastoral "
are, it is true, employed as headings, as if the words were meant
to be opposed to each other ; but there is no further indication of
such intent, and their position on the plate can only be explained
as above. See the Frontispiece.

Varley' s "Epic." 41
nomenclature, to the respective classes indicated in
the Liber Studiorum by the letters P. and E, P, re
spectively. The lower, or simply Pastoral subject,'
is an ordinary English rural scene, with untrimmed
thicket, rugged roadside, and wooden fence, A
flock of sheep are fording a stream, and two geese
wander confidingly through rank grass towards a
gipsy camp. Under the branches of a dwarf tree,
the eye is just allowed to peer out into the distance
and perceive a village spire. The upper, or Epic
Pastoral, shows us a park-like expanse, with shaven
lawns and placid lake. Sheep and poets ruminate
in common on the banks. In lieu of the gipsy-tent,
a classic tomb reposes under tall and shapely trees.
An Italian mansion, half hid by rounded foliage,
rises majestically in the midst ; and over these the
eye is led to a greater range of distance, and a
wider horizon. The general lines of the composi
tion have a measured flow ; the gradations are more
subtile, the contrasts less abrupt, and the picturesque
is exalted into the beautiful.
Varley's letter-press in explanation of the plate
embraces a variety of useful hints, which apply to
these in common with other designs, but he for the
most part leaves it to the examples themselves to
show the general distinctions between the two styles
to which they belong.
One point of contrast, indeed, he specially notices,
in relation to the two individual subjects ; namely,
that in the epic example the eye is directed towards
the distance, while in the pastoral the attention is

42 Varley on "Epic Pastoral."
more exclusively engaged with the nearer objects.
In the former, "the distant landscape retiring by
the mildness of the middle tint (which always pro
duces space) receives," he says, " an agreeable con
trast from the due proportion of shadow " in the
foreground ; while, in the latter, the character of the
sky " directs the eye to the greatest contrast of light
in the lower portion of the picture, near to the prin
cipal lines and objects which contain the leading
features of interest." The disposition of the inci
dents tends to the same result. In the first case
" the two figures, turned toward the distance, direct
the spectator's eye into the subject." In the
second : — " As the sentiment and interest, from the
nature of the composition, belong more to the
foreground than to the distance, the sheep and
figure are made to assist this sentiment, by their
approach toward the spectator."
He further points out that in the epic subject the
elevated position of the spectator is such, that,
without producing the distortion of a bird's-eye
view, it enables him to " perceive a flat line in the
distance, over the buildings. This latter choice," he
adds, " may be considered as one of the grandest
expedients of several of the greatest masters, in
composing landscapes ; " and he proceeds to cite
some of the pictures of Nicolo Poussin, " represent
ing the customs of the ancients, with figures sitting
under trees, and against massy stone walls," as
belonging to the " higher class of landscape."
" This majestic style of art," he says, " frequently

Varley on Composition. 43
requires a regularity in parts, which, to uninformed
minds, often appear as so many formalities."
The writer then expatiates on the importance of
balancing the lines of the composition, and em
ploys the following curious illustration of his mean
ing : — " All the leading lines ascending and descend
ing should so balance each other from the different
sides of the picture, that a ball rolling down one of
them, should be impelled up on the other side ; and
so on in succession, till it settled near the centre of
the picture, on " a certain " level space," which the
writer considered it " necessary to introduce in all
subjects." " The want of this principle," he adds,
" is manifest in a thousand works of landscape ;
and especially in sketches, and frequently gives the
appearance of the picture being curtailed in its
length, whenever the lines run out of the picture ;
and in all cases is far from being satisfactory to the
eye of Taste."
Varley concludes what he calls the " explanation "
of the " Epic " subject with some remarks on " clas
sical designs of landscape, which exhibit the remains
of towns and buildings."
With respect to these, he says, "it will add
much to the decision and variety which are re
quired, if, generally, the ruins of stone walls, or
arches of bridges, accompany the representation
of pools of water which are near to them ; for, as
our general associations of classic scenes require
the introduction of buildings, and occasional straight
forms and lines, there should be but few portions of

44 E. P.^Epic Pastoral.
the picture without some fragment, especially near
the foreground ; as the decision of light and shade
which these things can sustain, when required, is
equivalent to an additional strength of light and
shade, and helps to throw back and soften the
distance." How much of what is here laid down applies to the
style of landscape composition which Turner chose
to distinguish by the letters E. P. will, I think, be
apparent both in the foregoing remarks, and on an
examination of the Liber plates. After a study and
comparison of them with these two designs of Var
ley's, there remains scarcely a doubt in my own
mind that Pye was using Turner's words when he
called the style in question, " Epic Pastoral."
Before dismissing the subject, it may be well to
recur for a moment to the consideration of the
word " epic " in its ordinary use in relation to
poetry ; in order to see if there can be any further
analogy to the case of graphic art. The most in
telligible account, to me, that I have found of the
word, is that given in Brande and Cox's " Dictionary
of Science, &c." " If a name," says the writer,
" which has been loosely applied to poems differing
widely from each other in many important features,
admits of definition, an epic may be defined to be
a poem which relates the history of some one event,
or series of events which, apart from what precedes
or follows them, may be regarded as a whole,"
Now it seems to me that this self-contained unity,
this concentration of interest within the boundary-

Pictorial Unity. 45

line of the picture, which is clearly referred to in
some of Varley's remarks above quoted, is a very
distinctive characteristic of a kind of landscape,
call it what we may, " classical," " ideal," " arti
ficial," " elevated," or "epic," which aimed at some
thing higher than mere " elegance," and was prac
tised by Claude and the Poussins, and, to a great
extent, by our own earlier landscape painters of the
present century, such as Varley,* Barret, and
Turner himself; something which is directly op
posed to the fragmentary imitations of nature,
copied with minute exactness, but without any com
position " as a whole," that pass too often in the
present day under the name of " landscapes," It
is also a quality which forms a more important
requisite, and is, I think, more sedulously cultivated
in the E, P. than in the P. examples given by
Turner of his " classification of styles " in the Liber
Studiorum.
* On being asked by an eminent living landscape painter
whether he had not a high opinion of Varley's drawings, Pye
answered, " Yes, as far as they go;" meaning thereby, that
Turner's principles were the same, but were carried by him to a
much higher point of refinement and completeness.

46 Style of Engraving.

CHAPTER III.
Style of Engraving — Mezzotint and Aquatint— Girtin's "Paris" — Experi
ments — Lewis's Plate " Bridge and Goats " — Turner's Letters — Technical
Difficulties — Engraver's Charges — ^Turner his own Etcher — Mr. Rawlinson
on Variations of Effect among Etchings — Mr. Haden's Theory —
Evidence of Lupton.
Although the Liber Studiorum had been adver
tised as a work to be engraved in mezzotint (that
being the process employed in the reproduction of
Oaude's studies in the Liber Veritatis), Turner did
not consider himself bound to adopt that style of
engraving, if he could meet with another that would
better suit his purpose, and give more perfectly the
effect of his own drawings. The capabilities of
aquatint* for the imitation of drawings in bistre or
sepia had been powerfully exhibited in the land
scapes of Paul Sandby, and more recently in
Girtin's last and greatest work, his series of views
in Paris, f The method was at that time employed
* In aquatint engraving the shades are produced by means of
acid, which corrodes the metal in the interstices of a granulated
coating of resin ; whereas a mezzotint plate is roughened with a
tool, worked by the hand.
t Among Mr. Pye's papers, I find the following record of the
end of Girtin's career. "From 1799, Girtin's illness (character
ized by asthma) continued to increase and to enfeeble his
exertions. At the Peace of Amiens (1802) he went to Paris, and
by the aid of a fiacre (in which, while there, he usually sat) and

Mezzotint and Aquatint. 47
with great effect in numerous publications wherein
the old stiff form of topographic illustration was
gradually giving place to the higher treatment of
landscape subjects which Turner and Girtin had
already done much to develop. Turner, therefore,
proceeded to make experiments, not only in Etching
and Mezzotint, but in Aquatint also, with a view to
the success of his project ; and, among the persons
whom he employed and consulted was Mr. John
Girtin, the great Thomas Girtin's surviving brother,
who had published the Paris views.* The follow-
his pencil, he recorded, in a number of sketches, the first
impressions of his mind on seeing the great features of that
remarkable city. On his return home he made for Lord Essex a
series of twenty drawings from those sketches ; projected a work
to be engraved from them in aquatinto ; etched in soft ground the
outlines of the subjects of the work ; and, in the full development
of his genius, he sunk into the grave, November 1802, aged 27
years. The engraved work was entitled ' Views in Paris and its
Environs,' by Thomas Girtin. It was published after the artist's
death, by his brother. His wife reported that he continued to
work to the last, and that the brush used to drop from his hand,
from weakness." Turner was among those who sorrowfully
followed " poor Tom," as he called him, to the grave,
" The breadth of Turner,'' writes Pye in one of his note-books,
" is greater than that of Girtin, Energy of individuality in
Girtin is generally greater than breadth  In Turner,
gradation was the governing power. In Girtin, gradation had its
due influence, but the parts were the governing power. Turner's
gradation commenced from the marginal line of the foreground
of his work ; in Girtin's works it did not begin till half way to
the horizon, consequently it was not so complete as Turner's."
* The Messrs. Redgrave ("A Century of Painters," vol. i,
p. 400) call John Girtin a " writing engraver," On the title-page
of the copy of the " Paris Views," in the Art Library at South
Kensington, is pasted one of his address cards, of which the

48 Turner's Experiments.
ing letter* to this assistant in Turner's labours,
" displays," says Pye, " to the engraver, one of the
great principles by means of which the painter
worked out his effects,"
" Mr, Girtin : Sir, — Be so good as to clear the
marginal lines, which are at present very bad,
double in some places and the Etching over (them).
If we succeed I should like to have them engraved
like Mr, DanieU's.f Respecting the Strength, don't
be fearful. Let me see how the sky can be made
to clear out, like a grain of aquatinta ; and then
the rest in proportion. As long as you can main
tain clearness, be not timid as to depth ; regard only
the gradation of the Shadows.
" You may be sure that I am rather anxious to
see how the first answers, and therefore the sooner
you can let me see a proof the more you will oblige
" Your obedient Servant,
" J. M. W. Turner,"
The result of these experiments appears to have
following is a copy : — " J. Girtin, 1, Little Newport Street, Gerrard
Street, Soho. [Late Assistant Engraver at the Bank;] Engraver
and Printer of Cards, Bills of Parcels, Notes, Arms, Crests &
Cyphers, Fac-similies of Manuscripts, &c."
* " The original letter,'' writes Pye, " is in the possession of
Mr. Anderton of Upper Grosvenor Street." It is here quoted
from a copy in Pye's handwriting.
t Views in India, by Thomas and William Daniell, were at
this time in course of publication. They were in aquatint ; and
to no subjects had that process been then applied with more
neatness and delicacy of finish.

Bridge and Goats. 49
been such as to determine the painter to employ
the aquatint process in the production . of his
Liber ; for the first engraver to whom he applied
to execute the plates was Mr. F. C. Lewis, a very
eminent artist in that style of work, who engraved
the greater number of Girtin's Paris views, and by
whom the first plate of Turner's great work was
actually put on the copper by the process in ques
tion. This plate does not stand first in the order of
publication,* for, although the first number of the
work was published in 1807, it only appeared in
the ninth, which came out in April, 181 2. The
reason why it was thus held back will presently be
understood. It is the plate, unnamed by Turner, but variously
described as " A Classical Composition " (Burlington
Catalogue), "Sunset, Landscape, Building, Goats,
&c," (Pye Collection), "Sunset after the manner of
Claude" (Pye MS.), " Scene in Italy, with goats on
a walled road, and trees above" (Ruskin), &c., but
familiarly known by the name in Mr. Rawlinson's
list, of " The Bridge and Goats." The original
drawing, wherein the subject is reversed, is among
those at the National Gallery. When Turner
engaged Mr. Lewis to work for the. Liber, it appears
to have been arranged that the painter should etch
the outline, and the engraver should add, in aquatint,
an imitation of the original washes of bistre or sepia,
* It is numbered 43 in Mr. Rawlinson's catalogue, wherein the
" Frontispiece," which came out a month later still, is marked
"No. I."

50 Lewis and his Plate.
and receive five pounds for doing so. In this
arrangejnent. Turner had before him the example
of his late friend Tom Girtin, who had himself
etched the outlines of the Paris views with such
masterly effect. How far (if at all) or in what
manner, the draughtsman and the engraver had
worked together in that wonderful series of prints,
I am unable to say ; but in Turner's case a practical
difficulty arose in this intended division of labour.
It appears from the following letter, that on etching
the first plate, the great painter became dissatisfied
with the order of proceeding ; and that, in the next,
he proposed, if possible, to have the aquatint done
first, and to put in the outline afterwards : —
" Mr. Lewis I could wish you of course to get
forward with the Etched plate as soon as possible,
only send me 1 2 Etchings before you aquatinta it
I have likewise put another drawing with the plate,
if you can get on with it without an Etching do so
and I will Etch it afterward if you cannot send me
another prepared plate when you send me the 1 2
Etchings and the drawing back and then I will get
it Etched and send it to Salisbury St. Send to
me at West End Upper Mall Hammersmith and if
by the Boat from Hungerford there is more chance
of care being taken of the Etched plate. — J. M. W.
Turner." It seems, however, that Mr. Lewis was unable to
comply with Turner's wish with respect to either of
the two drawings. In etching his outline with an
artist's freedom of touch. Turner had not, as I

Technical Difficulties. 51
imagine, been able to imitate his own drawing with
the fidelity of a professed copyist ; and it may well
be that, feeling this to be the case, and that it would
be impossible to preserve the spirit of his design,
and at the same time secure sufficient accuracy for
the purposes of the engraver, who was expected to
produce a fac-simile of the drawing, he had pro
posed for the future to finish with etched lines, what
the engraver should begin by putting in masses of
light and shade. This feeling, if it existed, was not
without foundation, for the nature of the painter's
etching of this first subject was found to be such,
that the engraver was obliged, for his guidance in
the aquatinting, to request Turner to tint an im
pression of it for him with washes, of colour
(probably grey or brown). He also interposed
technical objections to Turner's etching over his
work on future plates. " I felt," he wrote long after
to his friend Pye, " that there would be some very
troublesome matters respecting Mr. Turner's etch
ing on my plates afterwards ; I feared damage of
foul biting, which would cause endless trouble."
This explains, I think, the meaning of the first
expressions in the next letter, in which the painter
proposes that the engraver shall etch the plate
himself " Sir : — I have sent you an Etched outline tinted
as you desired— but* you cannot proceed without my
* Words seem to be omitted in these two places; perhaps
" as " or " if," and " I " or " you."
E 2

5 2 Letter from Turner.

Etching being exactly similar to my Drawing it is of
little use in my Etching them first — for* cannot
follow line by line with the Drawing— therefore I
wish you to Etch the one I now send and when you
send it home send an Etching ground over yours
with a proof print — then what etching is wanting I
can then add — I think this will be the best way, for
to touch up an etching! is full as much trouble to
me as making the drawing, so pray get this done
immediately. " J. M. W. Turner.
"West End, Upper Mall,
" Hammersmith.
" The new one is a view of Chepstow therefore
must not be Reversed but made like the drawing."^
* &«Note, p. 51.
t A very interesting example of Turner's thus " touching up
an etching " to save himself the " trouble of making a drawing "
was sold, in Mr. Heugh's collection, at Christie's, in April, 1878.
It was executed for the subject known as " Windmill and Lock,"
which was originally painted in oil. Mr. Rawlinson states that
he knows of no other drawing of that subject.
X The meaning of this postscript is, that " Chepstow," being a
real place, must be represented in the print as it stands in nature.
It would therefore have to be reversed on the copper plate.
The " Bridge and Goats," on the other hand, being a fancy
composition, did equally well either way, and the lines of the
original drawing had therefore been copied on the plate as they
were, the result being that the print of that subject is the reverse
of the drawing.
" Chepstow " may either be the subject called " River Wye,"
engraved by Annis, which was pubhshed in 181 2, and stands
No. 48 in Mr. Rawlinson's list, or that which Pye names
"Chepstow Castle. Junction of the Wye and Severn," No. 28,

Engraver's Pay. 53

Lewis had ho objection to undertake the etching,
but considered the sum of five guineas, which was
all that Turner would consent to pay for the plate,
etching included, a remuneration too far from
adequate to the time it would employ, " At that
time," he writes to Pye in 1850, "I was busied in
engraving fac-similes of the fine works of Claude,
Raffaele, Michael Angelo and other Masters of the
Royal Collection, but had Mr. Turner etched them
[the Liber plates] for me I certainly would not have
hesitated and would have gladly done them for the
low sum that he offered when he first came to
[me] about the work, ... I ought not," he adds,
"to have considered the price of the plates any
object* compared to the fame for such fine works."
" The reason," he says, in a letter to Pye dated 1852,
pubhshed 1811. Whichever it be, the above letter implies that it
was selected by Turner for an earlier place in the series.
Mr. Rawhnson prints this letter from a copy in the British
Museum; made, as he believes, by Pye, or more probably, I
think, by Lewis. An inspection of the original letter (recently in
the possession of F. C. Lewis's son, Mr. C. G. Lewis, and after
wards, if not now, in that of the last-named artist's nephew, Mr.
J. Hardwick Lewis) would show that before " Chepstow " in the
postscript there is the word " Dumblane," which Turner appears
to have written in error, and then smeared with his finger to
obliterate it, " Chepstow " being written after it by way of sub
stitution. This, coupled with the fact that Lewis, in the letter to
Pye, quoted below, distinctly states that Turner sent him " two
other " drawings to etch, besides the plate he engraved, seems to
show that " Dumblain," engraved by Lupton, No. 56, and pub
hshed in 1816, was also one of the earliest subjects chosen by
the artist. The interesting letter in question, though undated, is
written on paper which bears the maker's water-mark—" 1806."

54 Dismissal of Lewis.

now at the British Museum, and also printed by
Mr, Rawlinson, " I declined engraving Mr, Turner's
Liber Studiorum work, was on account of my
great engagement with Mr, Chamberlain for whom
I engraved the collection of Claude drawings of the
Royal Collection. I only engraved one plate for
Mr. Turner and which was etched by himself and
he requested me to go on and sent me two other
drawings and said I must etch them myself I
replied that the charge would be eight guineas.
He said 'No, I will give no more.' . . . The
charge for those plates should be fifteen guineas.
I was paid for the Claudes fifteen, twenty, thirty,
and forty guineas according to the size of the
plates." The following is the letter of Turner's which
closed the transaction — :
" Sir : — I received the Proof of Drawing the
Proof I like very well but do not think the grain is
so fine as those you showed me for Mr, Chamber
lain ;* the effect of the Drawing is well preserved but
as you wish to raise the Price to eight guineas, I
must decline having the other Drawing ingraved
therefore send it when you send the plates when
they have arrived safe the five guineas shall be left
* " The work here alluded to," writes Pye, " is ' Original designs
of the most celebrated masters of foreign schools of Art,' by
J. Chamberlain, Keeper of the King's Medals and Drawings,
1 812. The subjects engraved by F. C. Lewis are in aqua
tinta."

Turner's Etchings. 55

in Salisbury Street where you'll be so good as to
leave a recept for the same. " Yours, &c.,
" J. M. W. Turner.
" \/^h Dec, 1807, Hammersmith."
Thus ended the transaction with Lewis; and
afterwards Turner nearly always etched the plates
himself, the light and shade being added by a
mezzotint engraver.
If my interpretation of the first of the above
letters be correct, as to Turner's difficulty in keeping
his etched outline sufficiently close to the drawing
for the purposes of his engraver, Lewis, the question
suggests itself : " How did he subsequently over
come this difficulty in his relations with his other
engravers ?" F'or the elucidation of this point, Mr.
Rawlinson's volume furnishes some valuable facts
and observations. After each etching was finished,
and before the mezzotint work was added, several
impressions were taken from the plates. These
proofs were not sold by Turner, but came into the
market after his death, and are much prized by
connoisseurs. An examination of the whole set
shows that although professing, in all but a very few
cases, to be the work of Turner himself, the etch
ings are so varied in effect as to have even raised
considerable doubts in Mr. Rawlinson's mind,
whether some of them were from Turner's hand at
all. On these doubts being laid before Mr. Seymour
Haden, that eminent artist was enabled, by his

56 Mr. Haden's Theory.
practical knowledge of the technical processes of
etching, to explain to a great extent, what had thus
seemed a mystery. Turner, as we have seen, was
desirous of being relieved of the mechanical part of
the reproduction of his designs ; and it is also shown
by some penciled instructions in the painter's
writing, which have been found on two of the im
pressions in Mr. J. E. Taylor's collection, that the
engraver was employed to make some alterations
in or additions to the etched lines. Mr. Haden's
theory is, that although the lines were really
scratched by Turner with the etching point on the
resinous ground, the " biting in" of these lines upon
the plate {i.e., the application of the acid which
furrowed them out on the copper) was the work of
the professional engraver. This is a process, the
uncertainty of which, as every etcher knows, admits
of wide divergencies, which it is the province of the
artist to control, by the exercise of his judgment and
skill. Different artists having, as it is known, been
employed in the engraving of different plates, Mr.
Haden sees " no reason whatever to doubt," not only
that Turner made, in the above manner, the drawing
on the plate, and superintended the biting and cor- '
rection, but that " the apparent difference of handling
in the prefatory Etchings depends upon the biting,
erasures, additions, and corrections which the plate
has received in the course of its passage towards
completion." This theory also explains another remarkable
fact which Mr, Rawlinson had observed and been

"Aquafortis" by Say. 57
unable to account for. He found, in the complete
works of William Say, formed by that engraver
himself, and presented by his son to the British
Museum, not only proofs of the etchings of all the
Liber subjects which were mezzotinted by him, but
also a proof of the etching oi " M.^^oxs, and Hes-
perie," one of the Liber plates which had always
been supposed to be, throughout, the work of Turner
himself. At the same time he noticed, on the
margins of some of these proofs, the words in pencil,
"Aquafortis by W. Say." This expression, although,
as Mr, Rawlinson tells us, " frequently used to denote
the etcher of a plate," may, in these instances, signify
no more than that the acid was applied by the last-
named engraver.
As an expert in these matters, there can be no
higher authority than Mr. Haden ; and we may well
rest satisfied with his account of the transaction, as
far as it goes. But it does not explain how Turner
got over the objection which, if I rightly interpret
his letters to Lewis, he had to drawing for himself
upon the prepared plate the lines of the etching.
Some light, however, is thrown upon this point by
the written evidence of one of the engravers of the
Liber, which I find among Mr, Pye's papers. In
a letter* to him from Lupton, the following passage
occurs. After mentioning his own dealings with
Turner in relation to the first plate which he exe
cuted for the Liber, and the inadequate price paid,
* See p. 65.

58 Evidence of Lupton.
Lupton adds by way of postscript : — " N.B. I have
forgot the beginning. The engraver had also to
lay the etching ground and trace the subject on the
plate for the painter to etch, which was his uniform
practice. — T. L."
This tracing of the subject by the engraver seems
to supply the missing link in the course of proceed
ing. The practice accords with Mr. Haden's theory
that the more technical parts of the process were
habitually left by Turner to the professional crafts
men ; and a traced outline would enable the painter
to wield the etching-tool freely^ and withal retain
sufficient fidelity to the drawing to satisfy the
requirements of the copier in mezzotint. At the
same time it is to be observed that Lupton omits to
name among the functions assigned by Turner to
his engravers, the important one of " biting in ;" and
this in some degree counteracts the weight of Mr.
Haden's evidence. But as what Lupton did say
was an afterthought, he having " forgot the begin
ning " of the process ; he may possibly have " forgot"
the end also.

Charles Turner. 59

CHAPTER IV.
other Engravers of the Liber — Charies Turner— His Quarrel with Turner,
R.A. — Its Causes — The Painter's Payments in Kind — Insufficient Remu
neration to Engravers — Lupton — His First Plate — Clint's Experience —
Turner's own Work on the Plates — Manufacture of Proofs — Various
States — Pye's Opinion.
After the severance, under the above circum
stances, of Lewis's connection with Turner's great
work, the author employed his namesake, Charles
Turner, to engrave the designs, which were thence
forth, with a few partial exceptions, finished in
mezzotint, on the framework of lines etched by the
painter himself. Lewis's plate, as I have said, was
not issued until long after ; and Charles Turner
engraved and also published the first twenty plates
of the Liber. A difference then arose between the
two Turners, which caused an estrangement of
many years' duration, and the substitution of several
other engravers. Mr, Rawlinson states the belief,
which is correct, that Charles Turner required an
advance from eight guineas, which he had hitherto
received, to ten guineas, per plate ; and that this the
painter declined to grant. There is no doubt that
the engagement did not end amicably, though all
the circumstances of the quarrel are not generally
known. On this matter some further evidence is
afforded by the. papers of Mr. Pye,

6o Charles Turner.

" I had the pleasure," writes C, Turner to Pye, in
1852, "to engrave* twenty-five of the plates, for
eight guineas each, but finding I could not do justice
to myself, I solicited two guineas more, which he
would not grant, and a misunderstanding was the
consequence which lasted nineteen years. The
Windsor was then begun but has never been
published in the work."
Pye's memoranda contain also the following note,
apparently of a conversation on the same subject.
" Mr. Charles Turner reports that having had more
extra trouble with one of the plates for the Liber
Studiorum than with any that he had previously
engraved, and for which he received eight guineas
each, he remarked that fact to J. M. W. Turner, and
intimated that he ought to have twelve guineas
instead of eight for it. The great painter made no
reply, but the conversation continued on other
subjects. Presently Mr. C. Turner said, ' Shall I
charge twelve guineas in my account for the plate ?'
No answer was made. The conversation however
continued. Presently the great painter left, without
noticing the proposition submitted to him. Finally
he declined to pay the extra charge, and conse
quently the two Turners did not speak to each other
for (nineteen) years."
That this, however, was not the only event which
led to the estrangement appears from the following
further account, also given by Mr. Pye : —
* This includes three plates pubhshed after a reconciliation
had been effected, and two unpublished plates.

Quari'el with y. M. W. Turner. 6i
" Mr. C. Turner told me that previously to the
publication of the fourth number the great man
called upon him in a very bad humour, and said :
" ' This is a pretty business, why I find that some
of the Liber prints have been stolen.'
" Mr. Charles Turner. — ' Well ! do you suppose I
stole them ? '
" ' I don't say who stole them 1 '
" Mr. C. T. — ' How do you know that some of
them have been stolen ? '
" ' Why because many proofs are about that have
never been published. I have seen some of them
for sale without needle holes in their margins ;
which could not be if they had not been stolen.'
" ' This affair (continued Mr. C. Turner) made a
quarrel between us that lasted many years.' "
The sequel is related by John Pye, under his own
signature, thus : —
" The great painter having threatened with an
action the dealer in whose shop-window the proofs
had been exposed for sale, he brought forward a
woman of whom he had bought them. She proved
to be the person the great painter employed to
stitch together the prints of the Liber in numbers.
This person declared that the prints she had sold
were her own, for that Mr. Turner had given them
to her instead of money, when she pressed him for
the amount due to her for the labour she had per
formed, and that she sold them to enable herself to
get bread."
This was not the only occasion on which Turner

62 Turner's Payments in Kind.
is said to have given away valuable Liber proofs,
to avoid parting with money. The following anec
dote, in one of Pye's note-books, affords another
example : — ¦
" Mr. Colnaghi sold a very curiously interesting
series of the frontispiece of the Liber Studiorum
now in the possession of Mr. Stokes ; i.e., the
drawing and proofs of that plate in its progress,
and of the changes through which the effect of the
centre subject of Europa went in consequence of
the wear of the plate. Soon after the death of
Turner I remarked to Mr. D. Colnaghi on the fact
of his having purchased and sold this series of
curiosities, and on the presumptive evidence there
was of their having been stolen from Mr. Turner ;
to which Mr. Colnaghi replied : ' You are very
much mistaken in that matter. The person of
whom I bought them, a book-binder, received them
from Mr. Turner in discharge of a debt, in lieu of
money ! ' "
The following extract from one of Pye's note
books, gives his version of a story in point, which,
I believe, was first related in print by Mr. Alaric
A. Watts. "The father of Mr. Fawkes's porter
having died, he (the porter) left Mr. Fawkes to
conduct the business of the village inn, that had
been held by his father. Some time after he sought
an interview with Mr. Fawkes, with the hope of
obtaining for himself the chair in which he had sat
and slept many an hour in Farnley Hall. Having
expressed to Mr. Fawkes his desire, he said he

Underpayment of Engravers. 63
should be happy to pay for the chair, which he
valued at about ^3, and that he could settle for it
in a way that he thought would be agreeable. He
then proceeded to state that Mr. Turner, when
staying at , Farnley, used to drop in at his father's
house occasionally and take a glass of brandy-and-
water ; that in course of time he had run up a
score, which amounted to about £,2> i which he paid
by giving as a set-off* to the landlord, one of the
Yorkshire drawings, a little town. Now the price of
the chair being about ^^3, and the bill being f,-^^,
the drawing was offered and accepted as being the
full value of the chair."
The loss of such skilful collaborators as F. C.
Lewis and C. Turner does not seem to have affected
the painter's habit of screwing down his engravers
to the lowest possible scale of remuneration for their
work. Of this, Pye's experience as a collector
brought the following examples under his notice.
" During several years," he writes, " I sought in
vain to obtain proofs of the plates engraved by Mr.
Lupton for the Liber. That gentleman assured me
that he could neither supply me with them nor refer
me to any of his friends who were possessed of them.
On my expressing to him my surprise at his state
ment, he replied : ' The fact is, Pye, the remunera
tion I obtained for engraving those plates did not
enable me to pay for printing unnecessary proofs of
them!'" " For each of Mr, Lupton's four plates," continues

* Sic : — " an equivalent " is probably meant.

64 Lupton.
Pye, " he received five guineas. It was not until
1852 that I was enabled to obtain a proof of ' Ben
Arthur.' For that I paid five guineas, i.e., exactly
the price he received for engraving the plate."
Since that date the rise in the Liber market has
afforded examples in which the engraver's pay has
been far surpassed by the sums given for single
impressions. The following interesting letter, hitherto un
published, from Lupton to Pye, narrates the
circumstances of that engraver's first professional
connection with Turner, of whose works he was
destined to become -one of the most frequent and
successful interpreters, in the mezzotint style : —
" 4, Keppel Street,
"Russell Square, « Oct. 1848.
" My dear Sir,
" At your request, I send you the following
account of my first engraving. It was for the
immortal Turner, Upon my completing my ap
prenticeship with my much valued friend and
master, Clint, I frequently waited upon Turner with
proofs of the Liber Studiorum plates (in progress).
This introduction enabled me to solicit for myself a
subject to engrave, to which solicitation he replied :
• How do I know what you can do ? ' ' Nor do I
myself know, unless you try me,' I said ; ' but if
you will favour me with a subject, and don't Hke
the engraving when done, we will destroy it' He
good-naturedly • said, ' Well, tell me what I am to

Clint. 65
pay you.' Now, recollecting that my old master's
price for a plate was only six guineas, I thought it
prudent to say five. He immediately put into my
hands a slight but beautiful drawing in bistre of
Solway Moss. I anxiously laboured at my plate.
It was done, and, with the painter's aid, successfully
done ; and placed me at once among my brother
scrapers, an artist.
" My aspirations were so far satisfied, if not my
pocket. The pounds, shillings, and pence of the
affair ran thus. Copper plate, '^s. 6d., mezzotint
ground, 15^-. My own labour, seven or eight
weeks. As to provings, innumerable, resulting
from the difficulty of obtaining an agreeable colour
as nearly approaching to that of the drawing as
possible ; consequently the proving was not only
difficult but expensive, even to the amount of two
or three shillings each time.
" Yours, my dear Sir, very faithfully,
"John Pye, Esq." "Thomas Lupton.
Here follows the postscript quoted above.*
The evidence of one more of Turner's engravers
as to the painter's hard dealing, is given in the fol
lowing letter : — " Peckham,
« Oct. s, 1850,
"My dear Sir,
"In accordance with your wishes regarding the
Liber Studiorum, I find my memory not very exact.
* Page 58.

66 Turner his own Engraver.
I cannot now say whether I received five guineas
for each plate, or six ; but my pupil, Mr. Thomas
Lupton, whose memory I hold to be better than
my own, thinks I had the latter sum. I know that
I gave the plates up on account of the inadequacy
of the price. " Yours very sincerely,
" John Pye, Esq." "George Clint.
Eleven of the published plates of the Liber
Studiorum are the work of Turner's own hand,
from first to last ; unless, indeed, the biting-in of the
outlines was, in these, as well as in other cases,
entrusted to a professional engraver. But this was
very far from being the only share which the great
artist himself took in preparing the metal for the
transmission of his designs to paper. Not only
were all the plates engraved, when not actually by
him, at least under his own immediate and careful
superintendence, but he undertook the task of
repairing them when they became worn. His
course of proceeding in this " restoration " of the
plates (to use an expression employed in a some
what similar sense by church architects) is a matter
of notoriety ; but the following concise account of
those transactions, from the pen of John Pye, is
worth prjeserving. It is partly extracted from his
private memoranda, and partly from the MS. notes
which accompany the collection that he sold to the
British Museum : —
" The class of Landscape to which the subjects

Manufacture of Proofs. 67
respectively belong is dehoted by the capital letter,
or letters, on the upper part of the margin of each
plate. These letters, in the early published parts
of the work, also distinguish proof from print im
pressions. They are merely outlined in proofs. In
prints, a different, though varying, character is im
parted to them. They are not always the same.
Some of them are black, some tinted ; whilst others
are only distinguishable owing tp one of the mere
outlines used for proofs having been rendered
stronger than the rest . . . When some twenty
proofs had been printed, the open letters were thus
made black or otherwise so changed as to enable
the amateur collector to distinguish proofs from
print impressions.
" On the publication of the first twenty plates in
four parts, the conducting of the work," which had
hitherto been engraved and published by his name
sake, Charles Turner, " passed into the hands of the
great painter himself. He himself repaired the
plates, had the writing on the margin indicative
of print impressions cleared off and replaced by
writing indicative of proofs, and reissued to the
public proof impressions of the subjects in their
repaired state, at an advance of price. The work
the great painter continued to publish himself ; he
repaired the plates again and again, but he never
again reinserted on the margins of the plates the
letters which were necessary to enable the public to
distinguish proof from print impressions ; for each
of the impressions printed after the publication of
F 2

68 Various States.

the fourth part proclaimed itself, by its marginal
letter, to be a proof. ....
" All the changes of effects made in the subjects
of the plates during their wear under the printer's
hand were produced by Turner himself Hence
each act of repair or regeneration, instead of bring
ing the subject back to its original state, presents it
to the view endowed with new features of effect . . .
but, the etched outlines of the subjects never having
been worn by the printer's hand, the effects of
chiaroscuro in which they were clothed alone
claimed his attention." The " rapidity of wear in
the Liber plates, and the consequent necessity for
frequent reparations to enable them to produce a
moderate number of impressions, explain at once
how it comes to pass that there are, of each sub
ject, so great a variety of qualities of impression.
Turner himself superintended the printing of the
plates, and made with his own hand all the required
reparations. In so doing he rarely aimed at restor
ing the effect of a subject to its original state ; on
the contrary, he generally displayed his profound
knowledge of clair-obscur and inventive power, by
rendering the old engraved work applicable to the
production of a new effect The plate called the
' Calm,' and the ' Inverary Pier,' are remarkable
evidences of this power. It* presents to view each
of those subjects in fourf different effects ! , , ,
* The Pye collection, apparently,
t Mr, Rawlinson mentions five states of the " Inverary
.Pier." The print-room at the British Museum has at least six

Pyes Opinion. 69

Turner," observes Pye, in the MS, at the British
Museum, " evidently regarded each plate in its re
generated state as a new work," But the honest
old engraver's opinion of the painter's conduct in
these transactions appears more clearly in the fol
lowing passage from his private memoranda : —
" This withdrawal from the public of the means
of distinguishing one class of impressions from
another, by investing the bad with the mark that
had in all times of engraving belonged only to the
good, is one of the many remarkable features of
this work, and perhaps the least creditable of any
of them to the morality of the author,"
varieties of impressions, a careful and intelligent comparison of
which would reveal much, to a thoughtful student of landscape
composition, of the artistic skill which enabled the painter to
exercise an absolute control over the treatment of his subject ; to
guide the eye where he pleased, to attune, with the utmost pre
cision, and to restore by the simplest means, the general harmony
of the light and shade. A little consideration will discover a final
cause for every added point of black or white, whatever concrete
form it may assume ;— be it bird, or sail, or broken anchor, or
but a ripple on the surface of the loch.

70 Turner as a Publisher.

CHAPTER V.
Turner as a Publisher — Mixture of Proofs and Prints — Rapid Wear in Printing
¦ — Mismanagement — Trade Discount — Print Market — Sale of Proofs by
Colnaghi — Charles Turner's Stock — Mr. Griffith's — Rise in Price —
Evidence of Printsellers — Lahee's Set of Proofs — Sale of Turner's Stock
by the Court of Chancery — Future Prospect.
The great diversity which thus arose among the
impressions from each of the various plates of the
Liber Studiorum opened a wide field for the inves
tigation of the curious. But there was another cir
cumstance which tended still further to confuse the
amateur. This was the mode in which Turner was
in the habit of arranging and issuing the impres
sions. Turner charged double for what he called proof
copies. To a difference in price "no reasonable
objection," says Pye, " can be raised ; neither can
it be objected that the price of proofs was double
that of prints. But then, those who had paid for
proofs " were entitled to " good impressions of the
plates in their early states. Now it appears to
me very' doubtful," he adds, "whether, among all
the copies of the work issued between 1818 (the
time when the publication was discontinued and
became a volume) till Turner's death (185 1) a proof

Wear in Pricing. yi

copy will ever be found. All the copies I have
heard of, and all that I have seen, for which proof
prices have been paid (twenty-eight guineas) are
apparently indiscriminate mixtures of proofs and
prints, good and bad."
To obtain an entire set of proofs from the plates
in their original and perfect states, as they were, that
is to say, when Turner first regarded each as com
plete, thus became a task of considerable difficulty ;
the more so because the number of good impres
sions from every plate was necessarily extremely
limited. For " the plates of the Liber," says Pye,
" are copper (engraving on steel was not practised
in England at the time that the work was being
published). The Liber plates," he adds, " having
been worn out and repaired again and again, a ques
tion arose as to the number of good impressions
to be looked for of the plates in their first states.
To settle that question " Pye obtained, in the year
1852, certificates from the only two of the engravers
of the work who then survived, namely Charles
Turner and Lupton, and from Mr. Lahee, who
printed the plates during many years,* These three
authorities concurred in declaring that not more
than an average of thirty proofs of a fine class could
be taken from each plate. After these had been
* Lahee was not, however, the only printer employed. Mr.
M 'Queen, the eminent plate printer of 184, Tottenham Court
Road, states, in a letter of March 18, 1852, in answer to an
inquiry of Pye's, that he printed for Turner fifteen sets of the
Liber Studiorum in June 1845.

72 Mixture of Proofs and Prints.
printed, the plates lost their power. When Pye
sold his Liber collection to the British Museum, he
placed with it the original document containing these
certificates, and it is printed in an appendix to Mr.
RawHnson's volume.
Mr. Lahee prudently retained for himself as a trade
perquisite a set of proofs, which he sold to Lupton
after Turner's death, " At this time, the Liber"
writes Pye, " had been published upwards of thirty
years, and copies of it were in the hands of many
artists and amateurs ; yet, notwithstanding, the
printer's proof copy in question was the only one
known presenting to view a series of tolerably good
proof impressions of the plates in their perfect
states ; while each of the copies that had been pur
chased of Turner himself (in consequence of cir
cumstances elsewhere explained) was, without ex
ception, whether it was said to be of proofs or prints,
a mixture of a few good and many bad impressions
from plates more or less worn by the printer's hand,
till they had produced mere ghosts of what they had
been, and consequently in the print market the value
of such copies was very little,"
Mr, Rawlinson chiefly attributes the pecuniary
failure of the Liber Studiorum to a want of public
appreciation of the landscape art of Turner. The
modern taste for representations of natural scenery
and real objects, as opposed to the ideal and so-called
" classical " landscape of Claude, Poussin, and Sal-
vator Rosa, had not arisen. The " Epic " was still
preferred to the simple " Pastoral ;" but the " E, P."

Trade Discount. 73'

element was not strong enough to leaven the series.
There was, however, another cause which operated
against it, " The terms of publication," says Pye,
" were unfavourable to its success, for it was pub
lished by the great painter himself,* who required
to be paid for each part ready money ; and besides,
the allowance he made to print-sellers for dealing in
it was so much under that which they required, that
the Liber Studiorum was never fairly placed before
the world,"
The following interesting letter from Mr,
Colnaghi, obtained evidently by Pye for the
purpose of his intended memoir of Turner, shows
the style in which the painter conducted this
business : — " Pall Mall East,
"July 30, 1852.
" My dear Sir,
" I must begin my note to you, in answer to
yours, by an apology for not having sooner attended
to your wish ; but business, and want of an occasional
opportunity, must plead my excuse.
" The first Liber Studiorum transaction our house
had with the late great artist, J. M. W. Turner, was
to pay ready money for any of the work we might
wish to have, for which he allowed us a discount of
20 per cent. Two or three years afterwards he
diminished the allowance to 10 per cent.

* Before the breach with Charles Turner it was pubhshed in
the name of that engraver.

74', Turner and Colnaghi.
" About four years since, I received an order for a
set of the work. As usual, I sent to his house for
it with the money. He was not in London ; but
his housekeeper furnished my messenger with a
copy, but had received orders from her master not
to allow more than 5 per cent The money (^14)
was of course paid, and I thought no more about
the transaction. But, some five or six weeks after,
I received a visit from Mr. Turner, and in his rather
uncourteous manner he said, ' You owe me fourteen
shillings.' ' I was not aware of being indebted to
you,' said I. He explained that before he left
town, he had made up his mind not to make any
allowance to the trade on sales. He acknowledged
that he was not quite certain of having mentioned
this determination of his to his housekeeper, but still
he thought I owed him the money. I then took some
silver out of my pocket, and, offering it to him, I
said, ' If you really think I owe you the money,
take it ;' which he felt very much inclined to do, but
I suppose an unusual fit of liberality came across
him, and he said, ' No, not this time, but, recollect,
in future, no discount to the trade.' ' But,' said I,
'in that case how are we to live?' 'That's no
affair of mine,' said he. Upon which we shook
hands and parted. This was the last transaction I
ever had with him, and the last time I ever saw him.
" Believe me, my dear Sir,
" Most faithfully yours,
" D. Colnaghi,
" John Pye, Esq,"

Print Market. 75

The above letter I find stitched in a cover in
dorsed, in Pye's writing, " Evidence of Turner's
eccentricities, and his love of money," The events
there narrated occui-red, it will have been seen,
but three years before the painter's death, at a time
when the work in question had begun to be sought
for, and good impressions of its plates to be treasured
up by print collectors. In its earlier days, after the
publication ceased in 18 19, until about the year
1 840, the sale had been so limited and private, and
the work so little cared about, that it had never been
offered for sale in the windows of print-sellers,
neither had they kept it in stock.
"From 1840 to 1 851," continues Pye, "Turner's
reputation and the price of the Liber rose in propor
tion. Copies of it were sold occasionally by auction,
and dealers were mostly the highest bidders.* The
frequency of enquiries made in the print trade by
artists for good impressions of favourite subjects of
the work, and by others, possessed of copies of it,'
who desired to get rid of all bad impressions and
supply their places with good ones, tempted the
* " Mr. Halstead," says Pye, " was at this time the greatest
buyer. He began to deal in Turner's prints in 1833 ; sought
engravers' proofs ; sold at that time engravers' proofs of the
Liber at 7.?. dd. each, and a few years [afterwards] repurchased
many of them at a guinea and a half each. Bought at Christie's
Mr. Say's proofs of the plates he engraved for the Liber at is. dd.
each, and sold some of the unpublished ones at a guinea and a
half. Bought by auction thirteen numbers for 9 guineas ; but
previously the price was so low that he bought an entire set of
the fourteen numbers for^3."

76 Liber Market.

print dealers to look to the chances of auctions for
the means of supplying the demand. The copies
thus brought into the market were immediately
broken up, and each print priced according to its
popularity, or the goodness of its impression. By
this trade in single prints, many stray proofs of
great brilliancy (and occasionally an unlettered one)
have been acquired by the artist and amateur
collector." But it was impossible to obtain a perfect set of
impressions except by the following process : — " By
reason of the intermixture of good and bad impres
sions in all copies, the only known means of acquir
ing a good proof copy of the Liber formerly was to
buy up a large number of the defective copies and
make a selection from the total number bought.
This mode of proceeding had not, however, been
adopted when Turner died." It was not until that
event, thirty-two years after the publication of the
last part of the Liber, that emulation was raised
among collectors, and a keen traffic in proofs set in.
As yet the work " had excited little interest beyond
that of the community of British artists." To the
many the plates were known only in their " deterio
rated state, disguised by second-hand dresses made
for them by the author as often as those with which
he had originally invested them began to fade."
At Turner's death, as has been above stated, the
set of proofs retained by Lahee, the printer, formed
the only known copy of the work in its original and
perfect state. "This collection," says Pye, "had

Proofs at Colnaghi's. 'j'j
probably neither been seen nor heard of till the sale
to Mr. Lupton. It did not, however, long continue
to enjoy among collectors of Turner's works the
reputation of being unique . . . Soon* after Turner's
death, a great number of fine impressions of some
forty-five or more of the plates of the Liber, un
lettered and lettered, were on sale by Messrs. D.
Colnaghi and Co, They had been lying by entirely
unknown to amateurs of art, and now came forth
with all their original freshness and with acquired
mellowness of tone, displaying the charms with
which the genius of the painter originally invested
the plates from which they were printed. Amateurs
acknowledged the seductiveness of their charms, and
almost immediately they were dispersed at prices
without example in sales of modern engraved works.
" This property Messrs. Colnaghi obtained from
Mr. C. Turner, and from Mr. T. Griffith," of
Norwood. Charles Turner was, as we know, the
engraver of a large number of the Liber plates ; and
Mr. Griffith " had been from 1840 agent to the great
painter for the sale of his pictures." The market
thus opened " astonished the art amateurs."
Charles Turner's collection was reported to com
prise " all his proof impressions of the first twenty
plates engraved by him for the Liber Studiorum, and
also all the proofs of his plates for that work on
which the great man had, during their progress,
touched." These Messrs. Colnaghi had bought for
upwards of ;^900. Of this amount ^600 were paid
* In January 1852, Turner died December 19, 1851,

¦78 Charles Turner's Stock.
for Charles Turner's stock of proofs of his finished
platfes, and ;^3oo for those of the unfinished plates
touched by his great namesake. The ;^6oo worth
of finished proofs had been valued by C, Turner,
one with another, at £\ 10s. each. They " were sold
by Messrs, Colnaghi and Co,, at from two guineas
to four and five guineas each.* Hence," says Pye,
"it may be presumed that Messrs, Colnaghi and Co.
gained ;^6oo profit, making the real money realized
by these proofs ^1,200, The estimated value of
each one of the lot of touched proofs . . . purchased
for ;^300, I have never heard. But as they were sold
at prices varying from ;^io to _;^I5, it may be pre
sumed that they realized a profit of ;^300, making the
real money value of this lot of touched proofs ^600.
Hence it appears that the proofs sold by Mr. C.
Turner to Messrs. Colnaghi and Co. of the plates he'
engraved for the Liber, touched , and untouched,
realized, when sold in detail to amateurs and
collectors, £ 1 ,800 ! ! "
" Mr. Charles Turner told me," says Pye, " that
he had at one time so many proofs of the plates in
different states that he gave them to the servants to
* In the sale at Christie and Co.'s, May i, 1878, of Mr. Heugh's
collection, were about twenty-five proofs, each with an etching,
from that of Charles Turner; certified by a memorandum by
Lahee, the printer, and also by a note by Charles Turner (by
whom they were also signed), to the effect that they were among
the first twenty or thirty impressions, after which the bloom began
to be lost. These were sold at prices varying from five guineas
to ;^23 per lot, or an average of about ;^io. Many were
bought by Messrs. Colnaghi and Co.

Charles Turner's Stock. 79
light the fire with, and that he little thought at that
time of the robbery he was committing on his
children, through his ignorance of the real value of
what he gave to be burnt . . .' How unconscious was
I while so doing,' he ejaculated, 'that Iwas robbing
my children of a fortune ! ' He continued, ' Why, a
few days after I had sold to Colnaghi my proofs,
and thought I had done well, a gentleman called at
my house and enquired of me whether I had any
proofs of my plates engraved after the great man,
finished or unfinished. But, to my regret, I found
that Colnaghi had cleared me out, with the excep
tion of one ; and that one was the first ever printed
from my plate of the wreck, which had been to me
till then more worthless than bl&nk paper, because I
could make no use of it. This I produced without
any expectation of selling it But my visitor was
so delighted at seeing it that I asked him twenty
guineas for it ; and in exchange I received from him
a cheque on his banker for that sum.' "
How Charles Turner became possessed of so
large a number of proofs of the finished plates,
" he accounted for," says Pye, " by the following
interesting anecdote, which he related to me, as well
as to many other persons : —
" ' While I was engraving the plates of the Liber,
said he, ' the great man often called upon me ... .
When my first plate was finished, and I showed my
great namesake a proof of it, he said, " I like this,
Charley, you must get me a dozen proofs of it .... "
Several times he said, " Charley, I should like to

So Mr. Griffith's Stock.

have a dozen proofs of that plate." Of course I
got the proofs, and paid for them, and also the like
number of all the other plates which I engraved for
the work.* But, some years afterwards, when I
quarreled with him, I asked him for the money that
I had paid for the printing of the proofs. He said,
" I shan't pay you, for I never ordered 'em," So
they remained in my hands. So, as they were
in my possession at the time of his death, and I had
been lying out of the money, I paid myself for
printing them, after more than thirty years, by
selling them to Colnaghi.' "
" Mr, Charles Turner," continues Pye, " engraved
of the seventy-one plates comprised in the Liber
Studiorum, published by J, M, W, Turner, twenty-
three, for each of which he received eight guineas,
making somewhat less than ;^200 for the whole
number. For the proofs of these plates the fore
going narrative is evidence that he received ;^900.
Hence it appears that he acquired a tolerably
remunerative interest for having paid for the
printing of twelve impressions of each plate that he
himself had engraved."
Mr, Griffith's collection of proofs, which came
into the market at the same time, was even
more interesting, Pye describes the contents of
a portfolio, which that gentleman exhibited to him
at Norwood, in May, 1852, as "some sixty (mostly
unlettered) proofs of Turner's Liber plates, of
* It will be remembered that Charles Turner was at this time
the publisher as well as the engraver of the work.

Mr. Griffith's Stock. 8r
which a large nuinber were from plates engraved
for the work by Turner himself ; and also duplicates
and triplicates of the subjects, lettered or unlettered,
and some of them from plates in their progressive
states, such as I had neither seen nor heard of;
and all these, notwithstanding that they were up
wards of thirty years old, were in as good a state
as they would have been had they never been
touched after they left the printer's hand .... I
knew that occasionally a stray engraver's proof,
besides those sold at Mr. Say's sale, had been met
with, but here I saw a collection of unlettered as
well as lettered proofs ; and I knew well that the
lettered had never been published." Pye relates
that Mr. Griffith informed him that he had, many
years previously, purchased these treasures at an
obscure shop in Soho, for two shillings and two-
shillings-and-sixpence each. How they came into
the possession of this mysterious printseller it is
probably useless to inquire.
" Of the property described as having changed
hands after Turner's death," says Pye, " an impor
tant portion is unaccompanied by any written or
traditional history of how it came to pass out of the
possession of the great painter. No unlettered proofs
were published by Turner .... There is reason
to believe that Turner himself never parted with any
unlettered proofs of the plates, and that those taken
from the plates he himself engraved were unknown to
the public till since his death. To say that he gave
them away would be to libel his character, and
g

82 Mr. Griffith's Stock.
nobody would believe it. Neither is it less difficult
to believe that he sold them to a printseller at a
price so low as to enable the dealer to sell them
again for two shillings, or even double that sum ;
for Turner's own selling price of lettered proofs was
two guineas each number of five, or upwards of
eight shillings each proof for ready-money only ;
and there are good reasons for believing that he
never allowed of discount on that price, even to
his most intimate acquaintances." I find also the
following less guarded opinion in one of Pye's note
books : — ¦" They had been, no doubt, stolen, probably
by the printer. That they were stolen I have no
doubt, from the fact that they had never been
stitched up in the work. They were all devoid of
the holes made by the needle of the stitcher in
every proof and print regularly passed into the
world by the publisher," There is, however,
another theory, which some of the facts above
related may entitle us to hope will prove to be the
true one. When Turner charged his namesake, the
engraver, with stealing proofs, it was, as we have
seen, discovered that the painter had himself given
them away in discharge of small debts, and it has
been further shown that other instances are on
record of his having disposed of works by his hand
in a similar manner. May not these impressions
have found their way into the market through the
like channel ?
Pye estimated the value received by Mr, Grififith
for his collection at upwards of ;^400, Of this.

Rise in Price, 83

amount ;^300 were laid out with him by Colnaghi
and Co,, in 1852, and he had also dealings with
other printsellers, and with art-amateurs. Among
the latter was Pye himself, who had long been a
collector of Liber prints, *
The revelation of this wealth of proofs infused
new life into the Liber market, and prices continued
to rise steadily for the next twenty years.
" Copies," says Pye, " of the whole fourteen
numbers had been sold in the market as low as £2),
and latterly as high as ;i^28. Single prints had been
as low as 2s. and 35-, each, while fine impressions of
favourite subjects have been sold by D. Colnaghi
and Co. and Mr. Halsted at 2\s. each."
The following letters were put together by
* Pye made the following note of his own dealing with
Mr. Griffith ; and it derives a permanent interest from the fact
that the Pye collection is now in the British Museum : —
" The proprietor of this precious lot of property declined to
sell for money, but was willing to exchange for works of art.
Hence I sought to obtain by exchanges that which money could
not buy. The result was, I acquired seven proofs, i.e.
( 2 ' Aesacus and Hesperie ' i unlettered and i lettered
1 1 ' Chepstow Castle ' \ „
r I ' The Wye ' i
\ I ' Watercress Gatherers ' i „
I ' Mer de Glace ' i „
I 'Ben Arthur' i „
" For the first three I gave a drawing by Landseer, worth p^' 2 5.
For the ' Wye ' and the ' Watercress Gatherers ' I gave a draw
ing by Robson worth ;^i2; for 'Mer de Glace' I gave Land
seer's Palette, with the dog painted by him thereon, ;^io ; for
' Ben Arthur,' drawing by Cox, £i,. Total ;^Si,"
G 2

84 Evidence of Printsellers.
Mr. Pye as evidence " showing the low ebb of
the value of prints of the Liber from the stoppage
of the publication, and of the progressive rise of
the value of them from Turner's death."

" 14, Pall Mall East,
"Jan. IS, 1850.
" Dear Sir,
" We beg leave to inform you that we should
charge from 15J. to 21s., for the plates of the Liber
Studiorum, taken separately, according to the nature
of the subjects. " We are, dear Sir,
" Your otedient Servants,
" For P. and D. Colnaghi and Co., A. Mackaye.
" John Pye, Esq." " Haymarket, "Jan. 5, 1852.
" Dear Sir,
"In reply to your question respecting Turner's
Liber Studiorum, I beg to inform you that I
have a collection of miscellaneous impressions in
various states, varying in price from i5.y. to three
guineas. " I am, dear Sir,
" Yours truly,
" John Pye, Esq." " J. Hogarth.

Evidence of Printsellers. 85

"Pall Mall East,
"June 10, 1852.
" Dear Sir,
" In the spring of 1852 we sold a number of
proof impressions of plates engraved by Charles
Turner, A.R.A,, for J. M, W, Turner's Liber Studi
orum. Many of them were in peculiar undescribed
states, and all of the finest quality. The price of
these impressions varied from two to three guineas,
and for some of the proofs before letters (artist's
proofs) we got five guineas each. Were these last
proofs in our hands at this time we could sell them
for a much higher sum than I have named. We have
within these last few days purchased of Mr. Charles
Turner the proofs of the plates which he engraved,
touched during the progress of the work by his
great namesake ; some of which we have sold for
^15 each. This price . may appear to old Turner
collectors as very high ; but in addition to the
extraordinary beauty of Turner's touching, we con
sider that the autograph directions to the engraver
which are written upon them add immensely to their
value. " I remain, dear Sir,
" Yours sincerely,
"Paul and Dominic Colnaghi. and Co.

'John Pye, Esq."

86 Evidence of Printsellers.

" Bond Street,
" i8th April, 1853.
" Sir, " On referring to my book, I find that I bought
proofs of Liber Studiorum plates engraved by Say,
at the sale of his effects in the latter end of 1841,
and that the price was, on the average, 2s. 6d. each.
Shortly afterwards these proofs were sold by me at
'js. 6d. each the lettered, and 10s. each the unlettered.
Afterwards I bought some of these again at 3i.s'. 6d.
each. " Sets of the work I have bought at various times
and at various prices, £t, the lowest, _;^28 5^-. the
highest and that for which I paid £2, was as fine as
any that has come into my possession. Single
prints of the work I have frequently bought in the
trade at 2S. and 35-. each.
" At the period of Say's sale there were so few
private buyers that few or none of the trade would
give any price for them. The case is very much
altered now, by the desire the amateur collectors of
works of art evince to possess them, I have
recently * seen Christie sell for ^8 %s. a proof of
the Liber that I had sold for ^i, which was, after it
* Here Pye makes the following note ; — " The sale was that
of the collection of prints of the late Mr. Burke, nephew of the
great man of that name. It took place at Christie's, June, 1852.
The subject of the print ' Solitude ' or ' The Magdalene.' " In
Pye's opinion it was much over valued, having been " printed
after the plate had been repaired." It " passed into Mr.
Hawkins's collection."

Evidence of Printsellers. 87
left me, and before it was placed in the hands of
Messrs, Christie and Manson, in the possession of
another printseller, who sold it for "js.
"What price the people's growing sense of Turner's
merits may yet give to these works I cannot tell, for
there are now many buyers, and as the subjects
were engraved upon copper, which by reason of its
softness and the fact that mezzotinto lies on the
surface, necessarily renders the fine impressions few
and difficult to obtain. It may be worthy of remark
that of all the many copies of Liber Studio7'um
which have come under my notice, I have never
seen one of consecutive good impressions. Each
copy of the work called Proofs is a like mixture of
good and bad, " I am. Sir, yours, &c.,
"John Pye." "F. Halsted.
[The original of the above letter is among the
papers which were placed in the hands of the
Keeper of Prints, when Pye sold his collection to
the British Museum.]
In June 1862 there comes a letter from Mr. Hal
sted announcing that he has been entrusted with the
sale of a set of proofs in the first published state,
all very fine, and in the very finest possible condition,
at the price of 200 guineas.
"Now," writes Pye, in 1867, "the Liber being
regarded as a great triumph of British Art, good
impressions of its plates are rarely purchaseable in
the market."

88 Laheis Proofs.
The few " good impressions," he declares, in a
strain of enthusiasm, " are being sought after by
amateurs of Turner's genius, at home and abroad,
and while we see them radiating the civilized
world, it would be folly to name any sum as the
ultimate limit of their value, for the difficulty of
obtaining them is of course progressively in
creasing." The changes of ownership in Mr, Lahee's set of
printer's proofs exhibit the upward course of the
market in these years. Although no longer
unique, their value became enhanced by the
general awakening of competition, Lupton pur
chased them in 1852 for ^200 (or guineas), and
offered them to the British Museum for ;^25o ;
which offer was refused. Soon afterwards they
were heard of as being in the hands of Messrs.
Colnaghi, by whom they were sold to Mr. Hay
wood Hawkins, of Brignor Park, Sussex ; and, they
then became the nucleus of his celebrated collection
of Liber proofs. In May 1865, these were again
dispersed under the hammer of Messrs. Sotheby,
Wilkinson and Co., and the printer's set of seventy-
one were bought in one lot by Messrs, Agnew
for ^450 (or guineas).
In 1869, the sale of Mr, Dillon's collection of
prints took place at Sotheby's, when a complete set,
said to have been first states, were sold for .;^23o.
Some of the rare artist's proofs fetched from ;^ 1 8 to
;^42 ; and single etchings varied in price from 5 to
30 guineas.

Sale in Chancery. 89
But a further event occurred in the history of the
sale of this remarkable work, which Pye does not
seem to have fully anticipated. The great sale at
Christie's, by order of the Court of Chancery, of
all the prints and plates in Turner's possession at
the time of his death, took place in 1873 and 1874,
in the course of the last year of the old engraver's
life. An immense and unsuspected stock of im
pressions were then discovered to have been stored
up, and to have long lain dormant in the painter's
gloomy house in Queen Anne Street Turner had
"kept back," writes Mr. Rawlinson, "the fine
impressions, of which he still possessed considerable
numbers ; and it was not until after his death that
their existence even was known," The limit of the
supply seemed then to have been reached, " No
more copies," writes the compiler of the American
catalogue, in 1874, "remain to be brought into the
market. Of original impressions of the complete
work there were but twenty-two copies, and these
brought prices ranging from 850 to 270 guineas.
A few copies on thick paper, taken off after the
plates had become deteriorated, brought much
lower prices. Fine impressions of single plates
brought from ;^i5 tO;^50 apiece." Mr. Rawlinson
calculates that about 5,000 engravings and 700
etchings from Liber plates were then sold, for
nearly £ 1 8,000.
Starting, however, from this new point of
departure, Mr, Rawlinson's estimate of the future is
similar to that made by John Pye, "Since 1873,"

90 Future Prospect.
says the later authority, " dealers and collectors
having then had so exceptional an opportunity of
filling their portfolios, the prices have, especially for
second-rate impressions, fallen somewhat below
those which obtained before the sale ; but fine First
States of the interesting subjects are to-day worth
from 4 to lo guineas, and fine Second States from
2 to 4 guineas each. Some of the rarer plates
command even higher prices. Looking at the
limited number of good impressions which the most
skilfully managed mezzotint plate can have yielded,
it is not improbable that, with the growing apprecia
tion of Turner — the growing interest in landscape
art — and, above all, the growing love of collecting,
as wealth and leisure are increasing, these prices
may be greatly further augmented," The latest
records of the sale-room seem to accord with this
prediction ; for a set of the Liber was sold at
Christie and Co,'s on May 3, 1879, for ;^35i.

Liber Collections, 91

CHAPTER VI,
Liber Collections — Stokes's — Its Sale and Dispersion — Estimated Value —
Hawkins Collection — Thornbury's Valuation — Pye Collection — Hamp
stead Conversazione— Sale to British Museum — Royal Academy — Turner
and the Clipstone Street Society — Dr. Percy's Set at South Kensington
—Mr. Taylor's Collection — Pye's Description of his own Collection.
No history of the Liber Studiorum could be
regarded as complete without a notice of the most
celebrated collections which have been made by
amateurs of the work ; and, even in the present
imperfect sketch, some reference to those that are
gone will not be out of place.
It is in the nature of such fabrics to live and die
like their possessors. They are successively brought
together, and again scattered, and their elements
become variously incorporated during a process of
continual transmigration. After years of embodi
ment and patient accretion, they are subject to be
completely and often suddenly disbanded. Several
wealthy portfolios of Libers have already met
with this fate, and their treasures gone to enrich the
contents of others. It would in most cases be
futile to attempt to revive, even in imagination, the
glories of bygone collections, or to trace from one
possessor to another the course of single unique or
valued impressions. But the names of some of the

92 Stokes Collection..

old collectors may be expected long to survive the
demolition of their laborious structures, and to be
handed down to posterity in connection with the
work itself and its great author.
Perhaps the most celebrated of these early
worshippers at the shrine of Turner was the late
Mr. Charles Stokes. In reference to the Liber
proofs which C. Turner and Mr. Griffith brought
into the market after J. M. W. Turner's death,
Pye writes : — " One of the competitors for these
rare specimens of Turner's learning and genius
in design and chiaroscuro, who enriched their
collections already imperfectly formed, and who
went into the competition irrespective of money
considerations, was Mr. Stokes, of Gray's Inn,
Turner's stockbroker and intimate acquaintance.
That gentleman not only formed a set of splendid
proof impressions of the seventy-one subjects,
but he enriched it with a large number of proof
impressions of plates in their progressive state,
all of which had been touched on by Turner him
self. No doubt he paid for his whistle, but the
collection he made did honour to himself, — and his
country." " The collection thus made," adds Pye, " instead
of being destined to become a national monument,
honourable to the memory of Turner and of Mr.
Stokes, was on Mr. Stokes's death destined to be
dispersed again. For his will had bequeathed it
to " a lady," who, having immortalized herself by
writing her name on the back of each print of

Hawkins's Collection. 93
the collection, and having estimated their value
v^5,ooo, offered the property to the Trustees
of the British Museum for that sum, which they
declined." The late Mr. Carpenter, the then
Keeper of Prints, told Pye that the Trustees
would have consented to buy the collection for
;^2,5oo. That was early in i860. Subsequently
it was placed " in the hands of Mr. Griffith of
Norwood, to be broken up, as a collection, by
selling singly the impressions to Art amateurs ; he
having assured the lady that by so doing he could
realize ;^5,ooo." Turner's old agent "had," as
Pye significantly remarks, " acquired some practical
knowledge in the art of dealing . . .
"In 1861, a few months before the death of
Mr. Griffith," he continues, " I enquired of him
as to the progress of the sale of that work; to
which he replied that he had received on account
upwards of ;^2,5oo, and that he had no doubt that
the stock on hand would realize at least as much
more. Whether he ultimately realized the ^5,000
will probably never be made publicly known."
" The breaking-up of Mr. Stokes's collection
opened up to Mr. Hawkins a source of wealth
applicable to enriching his collection of touched
rare proofs, of which he liberally availed himself."
His collection has already been mentioned as con
taining Lahee, the printer's, set of proofs. These,
and all Mr. Hawkins's Libers, were sold with the
rest of his prints, English and foreign, through the
agency of Messrs. D. Colnaghi and Co., in 1865;

94 Thornbury's Valuation.
and Mr. Mackaye, of that firm, informed Pye that
the whole collection of Liber prints thus sold pro
duced ^2,300. "The duplicate proofs, of which
there were many, touched and untouched, were sold
singly, at prices of which," adds Pye, " I have no
knowledge." Pye's note to the above effect was made by way
of commentary on a passage in Mr, Thornbury's
" Life of Turner," which refers in the following
terms to a third collection : — " The Stokes and
Hawkins collections of the Liber Studiorum',' says
that writer, " it is true have gone to pieces ; but Mr,
Pye's, even a richer and a fuller one, still remains
intact"* This account of Pye's store of prints
must, however, be regarded as another of the in
accurate statements which abound in Thornbury's
book. That biographer, having further declared that
a " complete set of the Liber was ^3,000 or more,"f
and having cited Pye as his principal authority re
specting the work in question, the latter replied, in
the AthencBum of February 26, 1862, " I am of
opinion that nobody ever heard of a complete set
of the Liber Studiorum being worth _;^3,ooo, till
Mr. Thornbury (on my authority) told them that
such was the case. A collection of proofs of the
plates of that work has been valued at ;;^5,ooo,
but a ' complete set ' of the work, and a collection
of duplicates and triplicates of its embellishments.

* "Life of J, M. W. Turner, R.A.," first edition, vol. i, p. viii.
t Lb. p. 274.

Pye Collection. 95

are different matters." Yet the biographer persisted
to the last in this absurd statement It is retained
in the edition revised by him in 1876 ; and still
passes current. Lately, it has reappeared in a form
based probably on an imperfect recollection of the,
above correspondence, and curiously illustrating the
growth of historical records. In a list of a collec
tion of the engraved works of Turner, exhibited in
1878 in Bond Street, which list forms an appendix
to Mr. Ruskin's* " Notes on his Drawings by Tur
ner," exhibited there at the same time, the following
information is given in a note descriptive of the:
Liber Studiorum : — " A fine set of Libers is now
a possession of great value, that belonging to the
late J. Pye, the engraver, and which consists of rare
proofs, having been purchased by the nation for the
sum of ;!^3,ooo."
It is only just to the memory of Mr, Pye to cor-.
rect this statement, and narrate the events referred;
tp as they really occurred, Pye had, as we have
seen, been a collector of Liber prints before;
Turner's death ; and his collection, which, excel-,
lent as it afterwards became, can never have ap
proached the unrivalled one of Stokes, was, eighteen
years after that event, sold to the British Museum
for ;^500. Those who knew John Pye in his later
years, must remember the fond enthusiasm with
which he would linger in contemplation of these
gems, and dilate upon the beauty of their " effects "
and their "clair-obscur." In the year 1857, he lent
* Mr. Ruskin was in no way answerable for this mistake.

96 Pye and the Liber.
his collection for exhibition at one of the interesting
conversazioni which were held for a series of annual
seasons in the assembly-rooms of the " Holly-bush "
tavern at Hampstead, under the management of
an intellectual society of artists and amateurs resid
ing in the neighbourhood, of whom the late Mr.
Edwin Field, the eminent solicitor and benefactor
to art and artists, and a warm friend of Pye's, was
a leading member. Pye's presence on the occasion,
the weight and acuteness of his remarks, and the
wiry figure of the hale old man (he was then in his
seventy-fifth year, and he lived to his ninety-second)
must still dwell in the remembrance of many of the
inhabitants of that pleasant artistic suburb.
He seems to have regarded the Liber Studiorum
as the depository of true principles belonging to a
school of landscape which was in danger of passing
away ; and he was anxious that it should remain
available in its most perfect form as a series of
examples for the education of the taste of British
artists of future generations. Over the want of
appreciation of the work by leaders and instructors
in art he laments in the following terms : —
"At the time of Turner's death (1851), thirty-
two years after the publication of the last part of
the Liber, that work had not won much public
favour, for even then no copy of it was to be found,
either in the British Museum,* or in the Library of
* As regards the British Museum, this statement does not
seem to be quite accurate. The present Keeper of Prints informs
me, however, that the Museum had no set until July 8, 1848.

Clipstone Street Society. 97
the Royal Academy of Arts of London, Neither
acquired a copy till Turner had been dead twenty
years. The Royal Academy," he characteristically
adds, " had not deemed it worthy of a place in
its library, in aid of the progress in Landscape
Art" Some young painters, however, who were looking
after their own education, showed a higher apprecia
tion of the value of the Liber. In December,
1844, when a copy was of little value in the
market, the committee of the Society of Artists
in Clipstone Street, Fitzroy Square, purchased
one of Turner himself for fourteen guineas. I
have been told, on what I believe to be good
authority, that the painter, on hearing that the
work was being bought by a society of students,
returned one guinea as a donation to their
funds. Pye was desirous, in the interests of art, that his
collection should be preserved as public property.
It must have been within two years after its exhibi
tion at Hampstead, that he offered it to the Royal
Academy at, it is believed, the same price that the
Museum afterwards paid, and which there appears
to be little doubt, was considerably below its market
value.* This offer was refused, to Pye's indigna-

* Pye's collection is something more than "a copy," as it is
called in the Librarian's minute of the purchase, at the British
Museum ; for it contains repetitions of plates in various states.
At the Turner sale in 1873 a "copy "is said to have sold for
800 guineas. h

98 Percy Collection.
tion. While in this temper, and acting on the soli
citation of the Keeper of Prints, he placed the
collection in the hands of that functionary, with a
view to its acquisition by the British Museum, and
on the 13th of February, 1869, the Trustees, on
Mr. Reid's recommendation, approved the purchase
for ;^500. After this national acquisition, the
Royal Academy, with the aid of the print-dealers,
obtained a set, which is now in the library at Bur
lington House.
The collection at South Kensington was pur
chased from Dr. Percy, F.R.S., in 1865, for ;^500.
It contains eighty-six impressions in all, including
a complete set of the " First States," and fifteen
variations. The prints are arranged, not in the
order of publication, but in groups according to
Turner's classification by the capital letters, H.,
E. P., P., M., and A.
Of collections now in the hands of private pos
sessors, the most varied and extensive is probably
that of Mr. John Edward Taylor.
At a risk of repeating a few statements of things
well known, I here transcribe, in conclusion, Pye's
account of his own collection, from a manuscript of
,his at the British Museum.
"An unique collection 0/156 proofs and print im
pressions in various states, of the 71 subjects
which between 1806 and 1820 were published
in the 'Liber Studiorum' by J. M. W.
Turner.

Pye on his Collection. 99

"The history of this collection, and its impor
tance, may be conceived when the circumstances of
the publication of the Liber Studiorum are recalled
thus : —
" The copper plates on which the subjects of the
work were executed having failed, so exquisitely
delicate was the engraving, to produce more than
from twenty to thirty fine impressions. Turner him
self, in order to carry on the work, executed from
time to time all the needful reparations upon the
copper plates ; and thus impressions were obtained
which constituted a series of ' YJ^ex' prints distin
guished among amateurs of Turner's productions
as impressions of the plates in their ' second ' and
' third ' states of repair. These ' states ' were con
sequently less valuable than impressions which had
been taken from the plates in their original condi
tion. Yet, being the results of Turner's genius and
profound knowledge of chiaroscuro, even these
states were valuable on account of their presenting
collectively most of the subjects of the original
work under the influence of what may be called
' Effects ' No. 2, 3, and sometimes 4.
" Even in an original copy of the ' Liber ' each
subject appears under ' Effect No. i ' only. The
result of bringing the whole together in a series of
impressions such as that in question is to open to
the student and amateur in art a source of instruc
tion and delight which has hitherto been unknown.
The wealth of this collection will be appreciated

lOO John Pye.
by considering that it includes a series of im
pressions of the seventy-one plates in their various
states. "JOHN PYE,
" Landscape Engraver ; one of the Correspondents of the
Lmperial Lnstitute of France; and LLonorary Member
of the Lmperial Academy of Arts, St. Petersburg.
"Feb. 13, 1869."

APPENDIX,

LIST OF PLATES OF THE SERIES P. AND E. P.

Part.

Published.

P. (Pastoral.)

E. P. (Epic Pastoral.)

I.

20 Jan., 1807

Bridge and Cows*

•
Woman and Tambourine

IL

20 Feb., 1808

Straw Yard

Okehampton Castle
Castle above the Meadows
Boy Piping

IIL

ID June, 1808

' ' Pembury Mill, Kent "

Bridge in Mid-Distance
Sun between Trees

IV.

29 Mar., 1809

Farmyard with Cock

' ' Drawing of the Clyde "

V.

I Jan., 1811

"Juvenile Tricks"

Hindoo Worshipper
Hindoo Devotions

VI.

I June, 181 1

Windmill and Lock

Junction of Severn and Wye*

VII.

I June, i8ri

" Youn£ Anglers "

"Si. Catherine's Hill, near
Guildford"

VIII.

I Feb., 1812

" Water-Mill"

Woman at a Tank
Hindoo Ablutions

IX.

23 Ap., 1812

" Winchelsea, Sussex ''

Bridge and Goats

X.

23 May, 1812

" Hedging and Ditching"

" River iVye"
Chepstow Castle

XL

I Jan,, 1816

" Solway Moss'''

SolitudeReading Magdalen

XIL

I Jan., 1816

"Norham Castle, on the
Tweed"

Raglan Castle

XIII.

I Jan., 1819

" Watercress Gatherers,
RaiVs Head, Ferry
Bridge, Twickenham "

Twickenham — Pope's Villa
Garrick's Temple and Hamp-
ton Church
The Alcove

XIV.

1 Jan., 1819

"East Gate, Winchelsea,
Sussex "

"Isis"

[The names in Italics are titles given by Turner himself. The other names are those
by which the plates are generally known.]

* See the frontispiece to these pages.

MULREADY'S
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