A Limekiln, Possibly at Briton Ferry in South Wales

Turner was barely out of his teens when he painted this, and oil was still new to him. His living then came from topographical watercolours made on long summer tours, and in the mid-1790s one of those tours took him through South Wales. Limestone was being burned there in kilns along the coast to make quicklime, for mortar and for sweetening sour farmland. The kilns ran through the night, and their glow served as a landmark for anyone travelling late. It is the only real light in this small panel. For most of the 20th century the picture was known as Limekiln at Coalbrookdale, which set it in the iron valley in Shropshire. Yale now titles it more cautiously, possibly Briton Ferry, and the question is still open.