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Which Old Masters did J.M.W. Turner study and admire?

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J.M.W. Turner: The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to Be Broken Up, 1838 — J.M.W. Turner *The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to Be Broken Up, 1838*, oil on canvas by J.M.W. Turner, 1839; in the National Gallery, London.

J.M.W. Turner actively studied and emulated several Old Masters throughout his career to master various landscape styles. Upon becoming a full academician at the Royal Academy in 1802, he produced a series of large works specifically intended to challenge the achievements of 17th-century masters, including:

Nicolas Poussin
Claude Lorrain
Aelbert Cuyp
Willem van de Velde the Younger

Turner held a particular reverence for Claude Lorrain; he famously bequeathed two of his own paintings to the National Gallery on the condition that they be hung alongside his two favorite works by Claude. Additionally, Turner’s Liber Studiorum was directly inspired by Claude’s Liber veritatis.

Beyond these figures, Turner studied the Old Masters at the Louvre and drew early influence from the poetic approaches of John Robert Cozens and Richard Wilson. His marine paintings also demonstrate a methodical mastery of the 17th-century Dutch landscape tradition.1