& shades of green in-between
Petworth House in West Sussex has been described as ‘one of the grandest and at the same time blandest, of all English country houses’,1 with an interior ‘by no means comfortable, having long suites of handsome but dreary saloons’.2 Despite such unappetising descriptions, this grand mansion offers the greatest feast of art to be savoured in any UK country house, ranging from Titian’s Italian Renaissance masterpieces to Turner’s 19th century Romantic landscapes. Additionally, the scenic seven-hundred acre deer park provides a green and rolling living sculpture, designed by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, surviving unaltered since completion in 1760. The pleasure grounds, separated from the deer park by a stylised ha-ha, also bear the classical signatures of Brown’s designs, with a Doric temple and an Ionic rotunda adding iconic architectural features and prime viewing points.
The east front reveals remnants of the oldest architectural history of this ancient seat of the Percy family, where the fourteenth century tracery of the chapel window survives from the fortified medieval great house. Central agents in the subsequent evolution of Petworth include ‘The Proud Duke’ Charles Seymour (1662–1748), 6th Duke of Somerset, who came to Petworth House through marriage to heiress Lady Elizabeth Percy (1667–1722). The Duke rebuilt the property on a palatial scale, in the image of Baroque European grandeur, with an imposing 320 feet long stone facade on the west front. Rooms were re-furnished in the Louis XIV style, with a state bed ‘whose extravagance clearly paralleled those in the royal palaces’.3 To complement the house, ‘new-fronted in the style of the Tuileries and furnished like Hampton Court’,4 a geometric baroque landscape including parterres and vast terraces, was also created.
Some fifty years after completion of the formal gardens, the Duke’s grandson, Charles Wyndham (1710–1763), 2nd Earl of Egremont, commissioned Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown to sweep away traditional features, and redesign the landscape in a naturalistic style. Rather than imposing symmetry and mathematical order onto the surroundings, Brown commanded the very earth itself to bow down before the house in a great sweeping lawn, then rise to a gently protective hill, to meander round a reflective serpentine lake (the humbly named ‘Upper Pond’) capturing the sky in a cradle of water, and sprouting sturdy belts and groves of trees that offered visitors enticing glimpses of the house as they approached via newly laid carriageways. Whilst Baroque architecture and landscaping was ‘above all mathematical’,5 the simple, naturalistic flair of Brown’s tableaux nonetheless required feats of precision engineering as impressive as those of any grand European design.
The landscape of the park was to provide inspiration for many artists associated with Petworth House, under the hospitable patronage of George O’Brien Wyndham (1751–1837), 3rd Earl of Egremont. Perhaps the most celebrated of these were J. M. W. Turner, a regular visitor at Petworth who used the room above the Chapel as his studio, and John Constable, who made watercolours and drawings of the house, parkland, and wider West Sussex landscape. The 3rd Earl extended the North Gallery, originally built by his father to house an impressive number of classical sculptures, amassing a dazzling collection of 19th century art including works by Blake, Constable, Fuseli, Gainsborough, and Turner, and stunning marble sculpture by Flaxman. In the Carved Room at Petworth are a further four of Turner’s, works commissioned by the 3rd Earl. These include ‘The Lake, Petworth; Sunset, Fighting Bucks’, painted around 1829, an idyllic pastoral tableau of the park, bathed in rich golden light, where a local cricket match has been taking place with the benevolent Earl’s permission. Yet, when the modern-day visitor learns of the Earl’s shares in a Barbados sugar plantation, there is immediate cause to pause and reflect. Capability Brown’s beautiful and celebrated landscape with its promise of leisurely pleasures, so skilfully captured by Turner’s brushstrokes, is suddenly brought into stark contrast with a shameful Caribbean landscape: one that, like the parkland, was moulded to satisfy the desires of powerful men, but at terrible human cost.
The National Trust, who acquired Petworth House in 1947, have in recent years been confronting links with slavery and colonialism,6 whilst continuing to carefully preserve its artistic and historic legacy. The Carved Room, for example, has been restored to its appearance in the 3rd Earl’s era, turning back the clock to fix its hands at a chosen moment in time. Meanwhile, creative evolution continues unabated in the private garden affiliated with the south wing. Here, the present-day Lord and Lady Egremont reside. Caroline Egremont, hailed as ‘one of the best designers and planters of her generation’,7 has transformed the family’s grounds into a beautiful and celebrated design, featured in various print and online publications.8 The private garden at Petworth reminds us that the story of a grand landscape is never truly complete: there are many authors, and always more chapters waiting to be written.
The following images of paintings by J. M. W. Turner, Nicholas Hilliard, William Frederick Witherington, Joshua Reynolds, and Augustus Wall Callcott are in the Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Painted by Joseph Mallord William Turner in 1810 for the third Earl of Egremont, Petworth, Sussex, the Seat of the Earl of Egremont, Dewy Morning captures fishing activities on the Upper Pond, as the park is drenched in the gilded luminescence of the morning haze. This particular work is on private display at Petworth, but most of the collection of twenty oil paintings by Turner are accessible to visitors.
Turner’s work was inspired by views from the centre of the lake as he rowed across Upper Pond. Today, the scene can be (almost) recreated from the banks, where marginal planting creates brushstroke textures. After a morning of sketching, Turner enjoyed fishing at Lower Pond, which remains popular with anglers today.
The boathouse offers a viewing platform, where the curving lake appears endless. This brings to mind Turner’s painting The Thames at Eaton, hanging in the North Gallery at Petworth: both Capability Brown and J. M. W. Turner are drawing the viewer along a journey, rather than merely framing a charming view.
Drifting smoke evokes the experiments of ‘The Wizard Earl’, Henry Percy (1564–1632), 9th Earl of Northumberland, known for his scientific and alchemical pursuits. In the miniature of Northumberland by Nicholas Hilliard, the background escarpment is reminiscent of distant topography viewed from high points of Petworth Park. The stylised garden, with its fascinating layers of archaic symbolism, is generally attributed to Syon Park in Middlesex, another of Northumberland’s estates.
Turner’s painting The Lake, Petworth, Sunset, Fighting Bucks (ca. 1829) is one of four hanging in the Carved Room. Deer also feature in the landscapes depicted on late 17th Century blue and white Chinese porcelain vases from Jingdezhen, displayed at the foot of the Grand Staircase. Magnificent herds of fallow deer have roamed Petworth Park for over 500 years, although they proved elusive creatures on the day of our visit.
Between 1688 and 1696, The Proud Duke rebuilt Petworth House, creating a west front of palatial European splendour. The parapet was adorned with statues and urns, and a squared dome with ironwork balcony rose majestically from the mansard roof. Around 1777, ornamental features were removed and the roofline altered leaving the west front looking much as it appears today.
Artist William Frederick Witherington’s oil painting of 1835, Fête in Petworth Park, shows distant feasting tables laid out on the lawn for residents of the district. The 3rd Earl of Egremont, shown on horseback tipping his hat to attendees, would have been 84 years old at the time.
The ha-ha at Petworth excludes deer from the Pleasure Grounds, with railings and a stone wall for additional boundary defences.
Pines sprout from beds of undulating topiary buxus boulders, creating a pleasingly orchestrated contrast with the naturalistic expanse of park in the distance.
The site of the Doric temple takes advantage of views over the Shimmings valley. From the Ionic rotunda, positioned on the steep hillside, the meadow below and pastoral panorama to the east can be enjoyed.
In the foreground of Turner’s 1827 watercolour of the North Gallery (British Museum collection) is the sculpture of St Michael Overcoming Satan, which John Flaxman created from a single marble block. This celebrated sculpture continues to command attention in the North Gallery today. Letters from the 3rd Earl of Egremont survive, outlining the dynamic qualities he wished Flaxman to craft into the piece, which was commissioned before April 1817 and completed in 1826. By the 1850s, the walls of the North Gallery were painted deep red, serving to highlight the form and luminosity of sculpted pieces, many from classical antiquity.
The wealth of art on display includes Charity by 18th Century portraitist Joshua Reynolds, with its theme of benevolence and protection. Amongst Turner’s luminous paintings are The Forest of Bere and Teignmouth, evoking wistful appreciation of English rural life. There is also work by friend and admirer of Turner’s, Augustus Wall Callcott. In A Sea Piece with a Dutch Fishing Boat Coming in, and Men of War in the Distance, Callcott portrays fisherman battling the rough seas in their own war with the elements. The gallery shows nature as both halcyon and fearsome, mirroring the portrayal of both gentle and violent acts of humankind.
The 16th Century portrait of a youthful cardinal, which hangs in the Marble Hall, was acquired as a Titian by the 3rd Earl of Egremont. Poor restoration work in later years led to an altered appearance, and doubts grew as to whether the painting was truly the work of such a great artist. In 2018 the piece was attributed to Titian by independent expert researchers, following specialist cleaning, x-ray, and infrared imaging.
Once used as the formal entrance to Petworth House, the Marble Hall has altered little since completion in 1692 for The Proud Duke, Charles Seymour. The view of 17th century Baroque symmetry, however, was transformed by the Duke’s grandson, Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont, who commissioned Capability Brown’s naturalistic rolling landscape.
References
1 Gervase Jackson-Stops (1977). The building of Petworth. Apollo, 105(183), 324-333 (see page 324).
2 Before leaving England (1907). Truth, 1596(62), 254.
3 & 4 Christopher Rowell (2000). Grinling Gibbons's Carved Room at Petworth: ‘The most superb monument of his skill’. Apollo 151(458), 19-26 (see page 21).
5 George L Hersey (2001). Architecture and geometry in the age of the Baroque. University of Chicago Press, (see page 4).
6 Loren Kite (2020, July, 23). Cream teas and home truths: The National Trust at 125. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/24fee86a-3818-4769-929a-41b604010917
7 Robin Lane Fox (2014, July 14). The Countess who gave Petworth House its garden. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/43b13490-fd1d-11e3-8ca9-00144feab7de
8 At the time of posting, there are particularly attractive images of the private garden available here: Virginia Fraser (2020, June 24). The exquisite private gardens of Petworth House. House & Garden. https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/petworth-gardens