Salisbury Plain with Old Sarum in the distance, Wiltshire

Salisbury Plain with Old Sarum in the distance, Wiltshire

William Turner of Oxford

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Washes of mauve and blue, dragged so wet across the rough-textured paper that they caused it to buckle slightly, create a darkening sky. Beneath the clouds that fill the largest portion of the sheet, a single figure accompanied by a dog-conveyed with a few brisk black strokes-walks through a field toward a narrow horizon brilliant with white-yellow light. In the far distance, a few standing forms appear silhouetted against the sky. The artist, called "Turner of Oxford" to distinguish him from his better-known contemporary J. M. W. Turner, captured a landscape widely admired by nineteenth-century painters for its striking light effects: that of Old Sarum, a mile and a half from modern Salisbury. The artist exhibited at least three views of the area between 1835 and 1845, which suggests a similar date for the present work.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Salisbury Plain with Old Sarum in the distance, WiltshireSalisbury Plain with Old Sarum in the distance, WiltshireSalisbury Plain with Old Sarum in the distance, WiltshireSalisbury Plain with Old Sarum in the distance, WiltshireSalisbury Plain with Old Sarum in the distance, Wiltshire

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.