JMW Turner’s Thames lodge to play host to rarely seen river scenes painted on his ‘floating studio'

Rarely seen paintings of the Thames by JMW Turner are going on show in the home the artist built by the river.

The five oil paintings show riverside scenes from Windsor to Isleworth and will feature in an exhibition at Sandycombe Lodge in Twickenham which Turner designed so he could see the Thames from his bedroom.

They were painted while he was living down the road in Isleworth where he would regularly rent a boat and record what he saw from the river. All five are painted on small panels of mahogany which were solid but portable enough for him to work on in his improvised floating studio.

The works are in the collection of the Tate and have been shared as part of The Ferryman Project which is funded by lottery money and arranges the loan of works of art. Exhibition curator Andrew Loukes said the rarely seen oils offered a “fascinating and intimate glimpse of the great artist’s practice”. Turner moved into Sandycombe Lodge in 1813 as a rural retreat. It is now run as a charity.

The show runs from January 10 to March 29.