The Farm-Yard with the Cock (Liber Studiorum, part IV, plate 17)
Medium
Etching and mezzotint; first state of three (Finberg)
Dimensions
plate: 7 1/16 x 10 1/4 in. (17.9 x 26 cm) sheet: 8 1/4 x 11 7/16 in. (21 x 29.1 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1928
Accession Number
28.97.17
Tags
Art Historical Context
Created in 1809, *The Farm-Yard with the Cock* belongs to J.M.W. Turner’s ambitious *Liber Studiorum* series, a collection of seventy prints intended to demonstrate the full range of landscape art. Turner designed the while skilled engravers like Charles Turner translated them into etching and mezzotint. This plate, the seventeenth in Part IV, falls within the “Pastoral” category, celebrating the quiet rhythms of rural life through its depiction of a farmyard complete with roosters, pigs, and laborers. The choice of mezzotint was particularly significant. By roughening the plate to hold ink i...