Harewood House celebrates Austen and Turner

Celebrating 250 years since their births, Harewood House in Leeds is bringing together Jane Austen and JMW Turner to explore the social and cultural life of the British country house and commissioning contemporary artist Lela Harris and poet Rommi Smith to respond to their creative legacies.

Harewood House Trust is marking 250 years of novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817) and painter Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) with the exhibition Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter.

Two contemporary award-winning creatives have been commissioned to reflect on Austen and Turner’s legacies in response to artworks, manuscripts and historical objects that bring Austen and Turner together for the first time.

Visual artist Lela Harris will produce a new work inspired by the literary world of Jane Austen, and poet and performer Rommi Smith becomes Harewood’s Writer in Residence, reflecting and responding to the themes of the exhibition through poetic form. Austen and Turner is a significant collaborative exhibition and research project between Harewood House Trust and the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at the University of York, with advice from independent curatorial consultant, Jade Foster.

Austen’s and Turner’s work will be represented by a series of major loaned works from public and private collections, some never before exhibited outside of the southeast of England. Among loans from Tate is Turner’s North of England sketchbook, which he used to record views of the Harewood estate. Turner developed his interest in landscape at Harewood and also began to push the technical boundaries of watercolour as a medium. Turner’s hand-made travelling watercolour paint set is loaned from the Royal Academy of Arts, in addition to the artist’s lesser-known paintings depicting country house interiors and its people. Showing alongside are Harewood’s important collection of early country house landscapes by Turner, painted following his invitation to the estate by the Lascelles family in 1797.  

Austen’s life and literary works are represented by rarely shown handwritten manuscripts and published works. On loan from the British Library and Jane Austen’s House Museum are letters written by Austen to her sister, Cassandra. Further works belonging to family members include an Austen family music manuscript, and a naval sketchbook and journal belonging to two of her elder brothers, Admiral Sir Francis Austen and Rear Admiral Charles Austen.

Austen’s creative process is revealed by the handwritten manuscript of her final novel, Sanditon. Remaining unfinished at her death in 1817, Sanditon is on loan from King’s College Cambridge, and will be shown alongside first editions of earlier works from different collections, including Pride & Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park. The loans to Austen and Turner are supported by Arts Council England and the Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund.

Created by the Garfield Weston Foundation and Art Fund, the Weston Loan Programme is the first ever UK-wide funding scheme to enable regional museums to borrow works of art and artefacts from national collections.

Austen and Turner’s world is brought to life through Regency period costume and ephemera, selected from Harewood’s collection and on loan from museums throughout the UK. This includes clothing and shoes that would have been essential for exploring the country house landscape in the period and the type of gadgets, such as Claude glasses and pocket telescopes, that became popular amid a growing domestic tourist market in search of the picturesque.

The exhibition also explores Austen’s and Turner’s relationship to the country house within its global context. Rare depictions of the Lascelles family’s Caribbean plantations will be loaned from Royal Museums Greenwich and the British Library. Austen herself was aware of the Lascelles family and their connections to transatlantic slavery, having used their name for a peripheral character in Mansfield Park, a novel rooted in themes of Empire.

Rebecca Burton, Curator and Archivist, Harewood House Trust said: “We’re bringing together an extraordinary series of loaned works by both Austen and Turner, some of which have never been displayed before in the North of England. Presented alongside Harewood’s impressive collection of Turner paintings, these artworks, objects and manuscripts will not only bring Austen and Turner’s world to life but also help us to tell new and surprising narratives around these beloved cultural figures.”

She continued: “It is incredible to have visual artist, Lela Harris, and the renowned writer and performer, Rommi Smith, whose new commissions will continue Austen’s and Turner’s tradition of creative innovation, working with us at Harewood. Both artist and writer have a history of working with historic house collections to engage with their complex histories and bring hidden narratives to the fore. We are excited to see how their encounter with Austen’s and Turner’s work creates fresh perspectives on their enduring creative legacies.”

Professor Chloe Wigston Smith, Director of the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, said: “The country house is an ideal setting in which to explore this fascinating and fraught period of history, literature and art. There are no better guides than Austen and Turner to understand the cultural and creative history of the country house, what it meant in their time, and what it can mean in ours. The Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies is thrilled to be co-curating this exhibition, which is an extraordinary opportunity for visitors to take in the full experience of the Regency world through the visual, textual and material.  Austen and Turner brought a fresh and modern perspective to the country house and this exhibition explores that legacy in rich and exciting ways.”

Harewood will present a Regency season throughout the year to accompany the exhibition, including Pride and Prejudice outdoor theatre, an extravagant Regency Ball, candlelit concert and themed afternoon teas. Turner-inspired artist-led painting workshops will be held in the ‘Capability’ Brown landscape, including sessions pitched for GCSE art students, as well as ‘Tiny Turner’ woodland activities for toddlers and ‘Sensory and Sensibility’ baby classes.

‘Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter’ is at Harewood House from Friday May 2 to Sunday October 19, 2025. For more information visit harewood.org