Studio: international art (55.1912)

Turner at Farnley Hall

“THE GUINEA-FOWL.” FROM A WATER-COLOUR
DRAWING BY J. M. W. TURNER
(Farnley Hall Collection)

missions for drawings and paintings of all kinds.
Some of the tasks he set the great artist were quite
unworthy of the genius and skill that were lavished
upon them. Mr. Fawkes owned a number of
interesting relics of the Civil War—the hat, watch,
and sword worn by Cromwell at the battle of
Marston Moor, swords used by Sir Thomas Fairfax
and Lambert, and other historical curiosities.
Turner, to oblige his friend, made a very curious
and ingenious drawing of the
cabinet at Farnley in which
these relics were kept. When
one first looks at the drawing
it seems to represent only a
handsome oak cabinet, but
the doors are made to swing
open and disclose a carefully
painted view of all the anti-
quarian treasures stored
within. Another curious
drawing represents a docu-
ment dated May 12, 1626,
which was addressed to
Thomas Fawkes, Esq., the
owner of Farnley Hall at
that time. It is one of those
instruments called “Benevo-
lences” by which Charles I.
endeavoured to extort money
from his unwilling subjects
without gaining the consent
of their representatives. In
90

Turner’s drawing this parchment is shown with the
swords of Cromwell, Fairfax, and Lambert run
through it. Two military commissions signed by
Cromwell and Fairfax respectively, which are still
preserved at Farnley Hall, are also introduced into
the design. Turner has taken immense pains to get
all the details of his subject-matter perfectly clear
and accurate. Each document is copied word for
word, the signatures being carefully imitated, yet
one has to take a magnifying glass to read the
tiny and delicate calligraphy. Turner, we all know,
was immensely ambitious and anxious about his
artistic fame, but this drawing, which called for
the exercise of none of his powers of invention and
design, which, indeed, only demanded extraordinary
care and patience and very ordinary powers of
draughtsmanship, and which might very well have
been entrusted to an inferior artist, was clearly not
made for fame or ambition ; neither was it made for
money—for which Sir Walter Scott, with less than his
usual insight and generosity, once said that Turner
would do anything, but that without it he would do
nothing; it was evidently a labour of love, a trying
and exacting piece of work done merely to give
pleasure to his friend.

The interest in history of Mr. Fawkes and his
family led them to complete a sort of grangerised
“ Chronicles of Great Britain,” for which Turner
was induced to make a number of elaborate title-
pages. These historical vignettes are mainly of
an allegorical character, the imagery and emblems,

“ THE HERON.” FROM A WATER-COLOUR DRAWING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.
(Farnley Hall Collection)