Hedging and Ditching, part X, plate 47 from "Liber Studiorum"

Designed and etched by Joseph Mallord William Turner British
 Engraver J. C. Easling British
 Publisher Joseph Mallord William Turner British

Not on view

Turner distilled his ideas about landscape In "Liber Studiorum" (Latin for Book of Studies), a series of seventy prints plus a frontispiece published between 1807 and 1819. To establish the compositions, he made brown watercolor drawings, then etched outlines onto copper plates. Professional engravers usually developed the tone under Turner's direction, and Easling here added mezzotint to detail an agricultural subject based on sketches made during a return journey from Portsmouth in 1807. Careful husbandry had patriotic overtones during Britain's extended war with Napoleonic France. and, despite a realistic veneer, the image evokes passing time by placing the winter activity of hedge building next to the warm weather one of ditch clearing. The letter "P" above the image indicates Turner's category of Pastoral landscape.

Hedging and Ditching, part X, plate 47 from "Liber Studiorum", Designed and etched by Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, London 1775–1851 London), Etching and mezzotint; first state of four

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