• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Caroline Shenton

Archivist, historian and writer

  • Home
  • Books
    • National Treasures
    • Mr Barry’s War
    • The Day Parliament Burned Down
    • Victoria Tower Treasures
  • Speaking
  • Consultancy
  • About
  • News
  • Contact

On the Anniversary of Turner’s Death: A Giveaway

19 December 2011 By Caroline Shenton

It’s a week of anniversaries and art.  JMW Turner (1775-1851) died 160 years ago today.  “I never miss an accident” he once said, and true to his word, he was out on the night of the fire at Westminster in 1834. Armed with his two notebooks he spent hours absorbing the colour and drama of the scene, both on land and water.  I haven’t been able to get all of his watercolour pictures of the fire into my book (one of them, and the two famous oils will be), but here are some wonderful reproductions of the rest from Tate Britain which houses the Turner bequest.  They are not on permanent public view at the gallery because that would damage them, but they can be studied in person on request.  In 2005 they were displayed alongside works by Monet and Whistler, and it is obvious the debt which those two other artists owe to England’s greatest painter.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

For more information on Turner’s paintings of the 1834 disaster, I recommend the very interesting catalogue by Katherine Solender, Dreadful Fire! (Cleveland OH, 1984) produced for the 150th anniversary of the fire by the American gallery which holds one of the oils.   It’s now out of print, but during my research, I managed by mistake to acquire two copies of this small but fascinating paperback from separate secondhand bookshops.  I have one in good condition to give away – if you’d like to win it, please follow this blog (if you’re not already) and add a comment or two about Turner or these paintings, or both, by 31 December.  I’ll choose a winner at random from contributions.

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook

Related

Filed Under: The 1834 Fire

About Caroline Shenton

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives in London, and before that was a senior archivist at the National Archives. Her book The Day Parliament Burned Down won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013 and Mary Beard called it 'microhistory at its absolute best' while Dan Jones considered it 'glorious'. Its acclaimed sequel, Mr Barryís War, about the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster, was a Book of the Year in 2016 for The Daily Telegraph and BBC History Magazine and was described by Lucy Worsley as 'a real jewel, finely wrought and beautiful'. During 2017 Caroline was Political Writer in Residence at Gladstone's Library.

Footer

About Caroline

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. Her book The Day Parliament Burned Down won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013. Read More…

Recent Posts

  • The Crown Jewels in Wartime
  • Nine Ways to Support An Author for Free
  • Tickets for The Day Parliament Burned Down, 16 Oct 2021 6pm
  • Safe As Houses – An Article for Historic Houses Magazine
  • All the News that’s Fit to Print

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Sign up for my newsletter!

© 2012–2025 Caroline Shenton | All Rights Reserved | Website by Callia Web