Caernarfon Castle

Turner drew Caernarfon Castle on a tour of North Wales in 1798, and he showed watercolours of it at the Royal Academy in 1799 and 1800. Around 1833, more than 30 years on, he painted it again by moonlight for Picturesque Views in England and Wales, a long series of watercolours sold to the public as engravings. Where this canvas falls between those moments is still open. One historian placed it around 1830, because its feathery trees match his work of those years. A. J. Finberg, who catalogued the drawings left to the nation, thought its layout followed the early views of 1799 more closely. The São Paulo museum dates it 1830 to 1835. Its first owner, an English collector named Thomas Henry Liddell, bought it from the artist himself. The paint has since lost much of its substance, most likely through heavy cleaning.