The Farm-Yard with the Cock (Liber Studiorum, part IV, plate 17)

Charles Turner|Joseph Mallord William Turner|Charles Turner

March 29, 1809 · Etching and mezzotint; first state of three (Finberg) · Drawings and Prints

The Farm-Yard with the Cock (Liber Studiorum, part IV, plate 17) — Charles Turner|Joseph Mallord William Turner|Charles Turner

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 Charles Turner here added mezzotint to detail pigs feeding at a trough, poultry pecking on a dung heap, and laborers chatting over wooden palings at the back. The emphatic rusticity echoes a mode popularized by George Morland, and the letter "P" in the upper margin indicates Turner's category of Pastoral landscape.

Artist
Charles Turner|Joseph Mallord William Turner|Charles Turner
Date
March 29, 1809
Medium
Etching and mezzotint; first state of three (Finberg)
Department
Drawings and Prints
Credit line
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1928

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