'Linlithgow Palace', Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1807

Picture, as described below

Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 122cm
Accession Number WAG2583

Linlithgow Palace, birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots, was a romantic and picturesque ruin by 1807. Turner added naked nymphs and evenly balanced trees to the composition. Such details elevated the picture above a simple landscape into something closer to a classical history painting in the manner of Claude Lorrain.

The thickly impastoed sunlit clouds, however, betray Turner's fundamental love of depicting strong natural effects.

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