Jane Austen and J M W Turner brought together for the first time in new exhibition at Harewood House

Turner’s association with Harewood dates back to the late 18th century. As a young, aspiring artist at the beginning of his career, he was commissioned in 1797 by Edward Lascelles, the son of the first Earl of Harewood, to make paintings of the house and its grounds and landscape. Turner produced nine paintings at that time depicting various views of the house, castle and surrounding landscape, all of which are included in the exhibition. While Austen never visited Harewood House, she clearly knew of the Lascelles family, giving one her characters their name in her 1814 novel Mansfield Park and country houses similar to Harewood frequently featured in her work.

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Harewood’s extensive collection of 18th and 19th century books includes a first edition copy of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (1811), on display in the exhibition alongside rarely seen artworks and loans from public and private collections. It is a wonderfully rich and layered exhibition which engages with thought-provoking topics through its exploration of the social and cultural significance of the country house in the Regency era. The seeds of the show were sown around a year and a half ago when Dr Richard Johns, a specialist in Turner, from the University of York’s Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies approached the curatorial team at Harewood House with the idea of bringing Austen and Turner together.

“We have this incredible collection of Turner pictures at Harewood and in the past we have done a number of exhibitions about Turner and his connection to Harewood,” says Rebecca Burton, Curator and Archivist, Harewood House Trust. “We were keen to do something different for the 250th anniversary so we were interested to hear Richard’s idea which offered a fresh way of looking at the broader collection. We were really excited by it. We realized that Austen and Turner’s creative output often overlapped in the sphere of the country house, so we focused the exhibition as an exploration of the country house and its place in the cultural and social life of the 18th century. Austen and Turner have an interesting shared perspective on the country house – neither of them was from an aristocratic background but they had the privilege of being invited into that world and when they entered it, they were observers. They were able to be more critical and their work is so compelling partly because of that.”

Austen and Turner’s innovative creativity is acknowledged and celebrated in the exhibition. Both were pioneering artists in their field; both were socially-engaged and, in their different ways, have shaped the perception of the country house not just during the period they lived through but right up to the present day. “We often think of Austen’s work as being romantic and of course it was in part, but her novels are about property and wealth and how her characters inhabit and are affected by that world,” says Professor Chloe Wigston Smith, a specialist in 18th century literature and part of the interdisciplinary group at the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies. “Something we wanted to do was to think about the historical context of that period. One of the ideas is that the country house in many ways encapsulates British culture at that time. The houses and the artworks displayed in them were a way for elite families to showcase their cultural, financial and intellectual prowess. The other part of the story is the sources of wealth that were funding these country houses. For example, Harewood, like many other country houses at the time, had been built on investments in colonialism and plantations and enslaved labour.”

That challenging part of the British country house’s history is addressed in a section of the exhibition inspired by scenes from Austen’s Mansfield Park which explores themes of empire and slavery. Austen and Turner and their fellow artists and thinkers were active during a turbulent time of political and social change which included the Napoleonic Wars, the French Revolution, the abolitionist movement and the Peterloo Massacre. The exhibition carefully and thoughtfully presents this context, while showcasing a whole wealth of exciting pieces for the visitor to enjoy

including rare books, manuscripts, oil paintings, watercolours, artistic tools, letters and period costumes used in the film and TV adaptations including Colin Firth’s as Mr Darcy in the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Kate Winslet’s as Elinor Dashwood in director Ang Lee’s 1995 film of Sense and Sensibility.

“We have loans from all over the country with some fantastic objects that are not often seen,” says Burton. “On the Austen side, the one we are most excited about is the unfinished manuscript of Sanditon, the novel she was writing when she died. It is very poignant. That is on loan from the Jane Austen Museum along with some of her diaries. On the Turner side we have a really amazing suite of pieces, some personal items, including a travelling watercolour paint box from the Royal Academy and the sketchbook he was using when he was at Harewood and lots his paintings on loan. Turner is known mostly as a landscape painter but we have some wonderful, surprising figurative works.”

A key theme of the exhibition is bringing the past into conversation with the present through the ongoing artistic influence and creative legacy of Austen and Turner. As an expansion of that, two contemporary award-winning artists have been commissioned to create new work in response. Visual artist Lela Harris is producing new work inspired by the literary world of Austen and poet and performer Rommi Smith is creating a series of poems exploring the exhibition’s invitation to consider a dialogue between Austen and Turner. Harris’s preparatory collage works for a larger-scale portrait (to be unveiled in the summer) of Miss Lambe, a character in Austen’s unfinished novel Sanditon, are on display, as are two of Smith’s poems – Perhaps, a conversation between Austen and Turner and Landscape #1, a letter from Austen to Turner.

“Our aim with the exhibition has been to draw out new and surprising narratives around Turner and Austen’s work,” says Burton. “We hope that visitors will be excited and inspired by the many different elements to the show.”

Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter is at Harewood House until October 19. There is an accompanying programme of themed events including talks, art workshops, a Regency ball, theatre and films. harewood.org