View of University Park looking towards New College, Oxford

William Turner of Oxford

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

William Turner, called "Turner of Oxford" after the town in which he worked, and to distinguish him from his better-known contemporary, J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851), developed a distinctive watercolor style. Here, the artist characteristically employs flat passages of brightly colored, fluid washes to achieve an exquisitely balanced composition. The distinctive Gothic spires, crenellated towers, and domes of New College, Oxford, seen from the north, rise beneath an expansive sky. A few figures punctuate the wide field that dominates the scene, with a scholar wearing a distinctive cap and gown walking at left, and two girls stooped at center to pick wildflowers.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art