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During the long months throughout which The Shipwreck plate was in the making Turner was a frequent visitor at the Wells's cottage at Knockholt in Kent. It was at Knockholt in October 1806 that the idea of the Liber Studiorum was suggested to Turner by his host, who had recently completed the joint publication with John Laporte of A Collection of Prints Illustrative of English ,Scenery, from the Drawings and Sketches of Gainsborough. This ambitious series of soft-ground etchings was published between 1802 and 1805. The course of events at Knockholt in 1806 is best recounted in a frequently quoted letter written to a friend in 1853 by Wells's daughter Clara:
The world are as much indebted to my father as to 'Turner for the exquisite Liber Studiorum, for without him I am sure it never would have existed - he was constantly urging Turner to undertake a work on the plan of the Liber Veritatis. I remember over and over again hearing him say `For your own credit's sake Turner you ought to give a work to the public which will do you, justice if after your death any work injurious to your fame should be executed, it then could be compared with the one you yourself gave to the public.' Turner placed implicit trust in my Father's judgment, but he required much and long continued spurring before he could be urged to undertake Liber Studiorum. At last, after he had been well goaded, one morning, half in a pet he said, `Zounds, Gaffer, there will be no peace with you till I begin, (he was staying with us at Knockholt) - well, give me a sheet of paper there, rule the size for me, tell me what subject I should take' - my father arranged the subjects, Pastoral, Architectural, &c., &c., as they now stand, and before he left us the first five subjects which form the first number were completed and arranged for publication greatly to my father's delight. This was in the October of 1806. I sat by Turner laughing and playing whilst he made the drawings -- for his visits to Knockholt were one scene of fun and merriment.
There has been much argument about the importance or otherwise of Claude's Liber Veritatis to Turner in the inception of his own Liber. Thomas Earlom's impressive and successful series of mezzotint engravings after the Claude drawings were made in the years 1774 to 1776 and published by Boydell in I 777 in two magnificent volumes dedicated to the Duke of Devonshire, who then owned the original drawings. The collection of 195 prints became the artist guide to landscape and was an important development and influence to art.
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