June Sale on our Listed Artists: 50% off!

Perfect for the Barn/Stable/Equestrian Club, or the home library. Royal links. If you buy both Malton prints on offer it's 10% off.

"My real master was Tom Malton” - J.M.W. Turner

A rare, early aquatint view of London by one of the greatest early exponents of the aquatint technique. “The Mews” by Thomas Malton the Younger comes from “A Picturesque Tour Through the Cities of London and Westminster, Illustrated With the most interesting Views, accurately delineated and in Aquatinta By Thomas Malton”, published in London in 1794. 

Malton was a teacher, a draughtsman, an etcher, and aquatinta engraver. Born in London in 1748, he was the son of the renown architectural draughtsman, Thomas Malton the Elder. After apprenticing for his father in Dublin, Malton began his career working for the London architect John Gandon. He then studied at the Royal Academy Schools, and from 1773 to 1803 he exhibited architectural drawings at the Royal Academy shows. Malton also taught perspective drawing in evening drawing classes and his best and most famous student was J.M.W.. Turner. In his later Royal Academy lectures in 1811, Turner takes the opportunity to highly praise the skills of his former drawing-master saying: "My real master was Tom Malton”. Turner went on to be appointed to the illustrious position of Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, so apparently Malton’s lessons took hold. 

When we examine the span of JMW Turner’s career output, we see that his work went from highly representational renderings of buildings always in perfect perspective to a lesser defined almost impressionist quality of landscape/seascape in his final efforts. I think we should credit Thomas Malton the Younger for teaching Turner the fundamental building blocks of perspective. With this solid platform of being able to render anything Turner saw onto paper perfectly, he was able over the course of his artistic career to depart from those rules he had learned so well. He had the freedom to create because he knew the baseline of all drawing and rendering: perspective. And this he had learned from Malton. Like all the finest artists, Turner’s complete and acute knowledge of all the basic drawing skills was a necessary framework for all his future efforts whether highly representational, or experimental. You can’t play jazz until you learn the notes. And Malton taught Turner the notes.

An interesting detail of Malton's hand coloring of the white Lipizzaner horses shows the use of lead phite pigment highlighted by the blue gray of their shimmering coats. From 1796, until he died in1804, Thomas Malton the Younger lived in Long Acre, off St. Martin’s Lane. This is a rare opportunity to collect (two) plates by JMW Turner’s favorite teacher, John Malton the Younger. (You will find a Matching Plate “The Mews” listed separately in this store.) 

This is "JMW Turner's Teacher's Week" as we also intend to list three items by another of JMW Turner's first art instructors, the honorable Sir Thomas Hearne.

The Subject: “Inside The Mews”

The Royal Mews was a stables that belonged to the British Royal Family. In London, these stables occupied a site located on the north side of Charing Cross at the western end of The Strand. It was called the “Mews” because the Royal Hawks were kept there and the name derives from the fact that they were confined there during Moulting or "Mew" time. The building was usually known as the “King's Mews”, but was also sometimes referred to as the “Royal Mews”, the “Royal Stables”, or as the “Queen's Mews” when there was a woman on the throne. It was rebuilt in 1732 to a William Kent design which is pictured in this plate. It was an impressive classical building, and there was an open space in front of it which ranked among the larger ones in central London at a time when the Royal Parks on the fringes of the city and the gardens of London's squares were open only to the residents of the surrounding houses. It was demolished to make way for Trafalgar Square.

DETAILS:

Title: “Inside The Mews”

Artist: Thomas Malton the Younger

From: “A Picturesque Tour through the Cities of London & Westminster”

Object type: Etched Plate with Aquatint

Published: December 30th, 1794 in London

Medium: Etching and aquatint

Dimension: Framed: 21”x 16.5”, Image size (including lettering): 13 x 18 3/4 inches. Sheet size: 15 1/8 x 22 1/2 inches. (303 mm x 230 mm.) 

Engraved by: Ashby. 

Printed by: “T. Bensley, Printer, Bolt Court, Fleet Street, London”.

Dedicated by: Thomas Malton to the Prince of Wales (afterwards King George IV).