Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.

Major Clive Behrens (1871-1935);
by direct family descent to the present owner

The more delicate pigments have dropped back a little in this watercolours. This can only be seen by looking at the extreme edges of the sheet. The paper has darkened a little and there one or two minor foxmarks. The work is laid down.
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This watercolour and that in the following lot show two views of Lake Como in Italy. The works date to the mid-1790s and were almost certainly painted at Dr Thomas Monro’s ‘academy’ at 8 Adelphi Terrace, London. Monro was a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and an amateur artist. He was also a passionate collector, owning over five thousand works of art, ranging from Old Master paintings to late 18^th century drawings by artists such as Gainsborough and Cozens. On Friday evenings, during the winter, he invited young artists into his home to copy from this collection. This ‘academy’ played a crucial role in Turner’s development, for not only was he paid half-a-crown and given supper, but it also exposed him to a vast cache of material, which fired his imagination. In addition, it gave him the opportunity to meet regularly with his fellow artists.

Turner painted a number of watercolours of Como at this time. Three examples were sold on the 13^th May 1881 at Christie’s and one of those drawings was later presented to the British Museum.¹ The very early history of the present two works is unknown, however they have remained in the same family collection since at least the 1930s. We would like to thank Ian Warrell for his help when cataloguing this lot.

1. Lake of Como; view of the lake, with a town at the foot of mountains which surround the lake (British Museum: 1915,0313.84)