J.M.W. Turner. 1775-1851.
Junction of the Severn and Wye. c. 1806-07. Published by J.M.W. Turner, June 1811. Etching. aquatint and mezzotint. Finberg 28.i/iii. Series: Liber Studiorum Part VI. Image: 7 1/8 x 10 3/8; plate: 8 1/4 x 11 1/2; sheet: 9 5/16 x 13 9/16. Drawn, etched and engraved (mezzotinted) by J.M.W Turner. A fine impression printed in sepia ink, on ivory wove paper with full margins. One of eleven prints from the series that is totally by Turner's hand. Signed with the artist's name in the plate. This is the rare first state. $3,500.
It is one of eleven published Liber subjects in Turner's 'Elevated (or Epic) Pastoral' category, as denoted by the letters 'BP' above the image.
Taken from the heights of Piercefield Park, the view descends to Chepstow Castle and the sun-lit Wye which winds out into the vastness of the Severn estuary and beyond. Turner first visited Wales in 1792, aged seventeen, on what was his first summer sketching tour. By this time a number of well known artists of his day had already explored the romantic landscape. In 1782 Gilpins’s ‘Observations on the River Wye’ was published and further popularised the industry known as 'Picturesque tourism’. Highlights of the Wye Tour, a 40 mile journey by boat taking between 2 and 3 days, featured ‘a succession of most picturesque scenes’. Setting out from Ross-on-Wye, the excursion included Goodrich Castle, Symonds Yat, Monmouth, Tintern Abbey, the Lancaut peninsular, Piercefield, with its famous walks, Chepstow Castle and finally the Junction of the Severn and Wye. Turner visited Wales again in 1798 and he recorded a swift sketch of this view. This, the first Liber plate to be engraved as well as etched by Turner, shows the artist’s unconventional, and highly successful, use of mezzotint
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