Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Visit to the Austen/Turner Exhibition at Harewood House

Thursday 11th September 2025 from 12 noon

£36 per person to include coach, guided exhibition tour and gratuity

Following on from the recent YPS visit to Chawton in May 2025, an afternoon visit has been arranged to the Austen/Turner exhibition at Harewood House on Thursday, 11 September, leaving York Memorial Gardens by Ingleby’s coach at 12 noon for a tour at 1.30pm. Both Jane Austen and J.M.W.Turner were born in 1775 and so in 2025 we are celebrating their 250th anniversaries.

For the very first time, the work of these two legendary artistic figures will be brought together, co-curated by Harewood House Trust and the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at the University of York.

ypsyork.org/…/Harewood-11.09.25-booking-form-final.pdf

Note that YPS Activities booking terms and conditions will apply and can be seen at the Lodge or online:

https://www.ypsyork.org/groups/social-group/yps-activities-booking-terms-conditions-2/

Member’s report:

Regency Reimagined; a YPS visit to Harewood House

On 11 September 2025 a group of YPS members visited Regency Reimagined; a title given to an exhibition celebrating the fact both Turner and Austen were born in 1775. On the face of it there is little to connect these two lives and their works. But the expert curators have linked them through exploiting the interest of each in the cultural life of the British country house and landscape; the subtitle of the exhibition is Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter.

It was easy to celebrate Turner as famously he had painted several watercolours of Harewood House (and Castle). While still a relatively young painter he was invited to Harewood in 1797, when he was commissioned by Edward Lascelles, the son of the first Earl of Harewood. Austen was trickier since she had not been to Harewood, but there were several significant items to please Austenites displayed, including Harewood’s own first edition of Sense and Sensibility.

One of the most exciting items was Turner’s own self-made watercolour box for his painting outdoor, already a significant new approach to landscape painting. Commercial blocks of watercolour paints were now being made available and Turner used these. The box had some original blocks of paint still in it, but the yellow and blue had already been depleted by (presumably) having been used for his painting of skies.

The many and various rooms devoted to this exhibition always contained a quotation from Austen on a banner, which set the theme for each room as one entered. In particular, the exhibition had 3 rooms focussed on slavery, from which Turner and Austen benefitted, and both worked in the context of slavery and plantations. One of Turner’s most famous works on this, Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon coming on, could not be lent, but there was a photogravure together with a US video discussing this work. Austen here was represented by commentary on the short but famous extract from Mansfield Park, in which a drawing room discussion comes to a halt as a question asked of her uncle by Fanny Price is met by a dead silence. A comment by Austen on one of the important aspects of the world in which she and Turner worked, but often, as here, is left undiscussed.

The value of the items, and the requirements of lenders, required that four high security display cases were commissioned for this exhibition, a good indication of the quality of the works displayed in them, which included Austen manuscripts.

The exhibition was curated by the Harewood House Trust and the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at the University of York.

Allison Wolfgarten

Gallery