The collection recreated: Turner's watercolours
The Library at Tottenham, the seat of B. G. Windus, Esq John Scarlett Davis, 1835 © British Museum
BG Windus commissioned John Scarlett Davis to paint his collection in Library in his home in Tottenham. Of the thirty-one drawings on display in this Davis's view, twenty can be easily identified, and other two or three tentatively so, while the identity of the others is masked by the oblique angle at which they hang or the reflectivity of the glass covering them. The paintings identified by the art historian, Eric Shanes, are listed below. The painting by Scarlett Davis is now in the British Museum.
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The Arts Union 1839 writing about the watercolours in the Windus collection by JMW Turner:
It is, in all events, utterly impossible to inspect these drawings without being satisfied of his wonderful genius. He is largely indebted to Mr Windus for determining a matter about which - strangely - there is some doubt, for many just critics and sensible persons turn, dissatisfied, from what they consider the exaggerated deformities of his later works. We are not of those who do so; we can see in his wildest perpetrations proofs of the highest talent, and believe he has painted nothing he had not seen - nothing that is not TRUE. In this collection, however, while there is ample to maintain his right to rank as the first among living artists, and scarcely second to any among the dead, there is not one of which the least imaginative, or the most jealous of altering fact, can for a moment disapprove. |
The paintings listed below have been identified in the watercolour BG Windus commissioned in 1835 from John Scarlett Davis
The Library at Tottenham, the seat of B. G. Windus, Esq
The Library at Tottenham, the seat of B. G. Windus, Esq
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Right wall: from Right to Left
The England and Wales series: Top row: Exeter Entrance to Fowey Harbour Richmond [from the moors] Okehampton, Devonshire Bottom row: Saltash Kilgarren Castle Trematon Castle Great Yarmouth On the chairs are:
(near) Palace of La Belle Gabrielle (far) Alnwick Castle |
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On the same wall beyond the door, and partly hidden by it, are two drawings which given the hanging of works on this side of the room and the facing-wall, would also appear to be England and Wales watercolours.
These could be: Top row: Straits of Dover (left) Bottom row: Penmaen-Mawr (right) |
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End Wall: from Right to Left
The England and Wales series: Top Row Malvern Abbey and Gate Coast from Folkestone to Dover ? Stoneyhurst Holy Island Bottom row: Either side of the wall beneath them appear to be the Southern Coast series drawings of (right) Minehead (left) Corfe Castle |
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Left hand wall
The identities of the furthest seven drawings on this wall are obscured by reflections and the angle at which they hang,
but many of the paintings closest to the left edge of the painting have been identified.
The identities of the furthest seven drawings on this wall are obscured by reflections and the angle at which they hang,
but many of the paintings closest to the left edge of the painting have been identified.
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Over the fireplace is the large 1818 watercolour of Hastings from the sea
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I am now engaged on a very difficult subject, the Interior of the Library of Mr Windus,
who has it filled with about fifty Turners, and when you come to town
we will go down and see him (he lives in Tottenham), and I can ensure you a treat.
John Scarlett Davis
who has it filled with about fifty Turners, and when you come to town
we will go down and see him (he lives in Tottenham), and I can ensure you a treat.
John Scarlett Davis
To complete the watercolour Scarlett Davis included Windus's son, William, and daughter, Mary.
For the current locations and copyright of the paintings click here
For the current locations and copyright of the paintings click here
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Only one of the great many books on view is titled. It stands upright on the left, a large editon of Faust.
As Eric Shanes writes: Perhaps Scarlett Davis knew that the medieval alchemist had turned base metals into gold. Turner certainly achieved something comparable on the walls up in Tottenham. Source: Eric Shanes, Picture Notes Turner Studies, III, 2, Winter 1984 |
