Petworth House and Mr. Turner...

A friend and I had booked tickets for the Joseph Turner exhibition at Petworth House today.  And one of the benefits was that as ticket holders the house was open to us.  I'd been quite often before but my friend hadn't so it was a great opportunity to see the house and with very few people about. :) - rare opportunity.  In the North Wing there is a permanent display of some his works.

There was a bitterly cold wind blowing but we had a walk through the woods first - Snowdrops everywhere and were amazing.

The grassland down to the lake was very boggy given the recent rain, so we had an early lunch (Sconch)... a fruity scone (not feeling hungry enough for a lunch) which lived up to the Petworth usual high standard of scone!!

and then off for a tour of the house.

The North Wing which exhibits. amongst other artists, some of Turner's paintings.

and then into the exhibition (for obvious reasons, no photography).  This was fascinating and seeing so many of Turner's pictures at one time made me appreciate more how diverse his styles of paintings are!  And there were several of his belongings on display as well including, his fishing rod, painting equipment and books from his library.

Following the exhibition we then went to the upper story of the house.  The Artists Studio.  Petworth House is where Turner stayed at times and painted some of his pictures and, obviously, where, Mike Leigh's award winning film , Mr Turner, was filmed starring Timothy Spall as Mr. Turner.

Special permission had been given to the National Trust to open up the Library (which is not normally open to the public even when the house is) to the exhibition visitors, which is where Turner undertook most of the paintings he undertook at Petworth.  The books themselves were fascinating and today we saw it as the Artist's Studio as used in the film,

A fascinating visit....