HC Deb 16 May 1969 vol 783 cc278-9W
Mr. Whitaker

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will summarise the terms of the Turner bequest of pictures to the nation; and where the pictures bequeathed are at present located.

Miss Jennie Lee

Turner died in 1851. Probate of his will and four codicils was granted in 1852. Turner directed that his finished pictures, except for two already bequeathed to it under special conditions, should go to the National Gallery, provided that a room or rooms were added to it to be called, when erected, "Turner's Gallery". The bequest was to be void if the trustees did not carry out its provisions within five, subsequently extended to ten, years. In the alternative, the pictures were to remain in his house until within two years of the expiry of the lease (1880) and then sold.

The will was contested by his next of kin and in 1856 a consent Order was made by the Court of Chancery, with the agreement of all the interested parties, under which not only the finished pictures but also the unfinished pictures and the drawings and sketches passed to the Gallery. A select Committee of the House of Lords set up in 1861 to consider the legal position found that the nation ought to carry out the conditions annexed to the gift.

The pictures in the bequest are at present distributed as follows:

  1. (i) The Tate Gallery has 276 oil paintings from the Turner Bequest of which five are on long loan in the National Museum of Wales, one in the National Gallery of Scotland, one in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, two in the Ulster Museum, Belfast, one in the Bristol City Art Gallery, one at the National Maritime Museum. Greenwich, and one in the Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, U.S.A. In addition, two are in the British Embassy, Washington, one in the British Embassy, Paris, and one at No. 10 Downing Street. Seven are at a 279 British Council exhibition in Prague, one at an exhibition in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris and one at an exhibition at the Museo Civico, Turin. Of the remainder, 107 are on exhibition in Galleries 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. The rest are in store. The majority of the oil paintings are not in a condition for display, let alone for travelling, though 165 have been treated since 1953. The National Gallery also has nine oil paintings from the bequest, all of which are on display.
  2. (ii) The collection of water colours, drawings and sketch books, which comprises 19,049 items, was moved from the Tate Gallery after the flooding in 1928 to the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, where they are on permanent loan. Fifty-seven of these, with two sketch books are on loan to the Tate Gallery. Thirty-seven are on semipermanent loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum, of which 27 are on display in rotation in the Department of Prints and Drawings and a further 10 to the Circulation Department. Some of these are travelling with that Department's circulating loan collections.
  3. (iii) The two pictures "Sun rising through Vapour" and "Dido building Carthage" specifically bequeathed to the National Gallery are now exhibited between two paintings by Claude, in the arrangement wished by Turner.