The Late Works of J. M. W. Turner

“[A] scholarly and impeccably detailed examination of Turner’s art and its critical reception . . . presenting a rich, absorbing account of his later career. [Sam Smiles] challenges the hackneyed image of Turner in his last two decades. . . . In its place he builds a complex picture of a man who, despite his gradually declining health and the diminishing output of his very last years, retained a keen interest in the world around him, in the marketing of his art and in his posthumous reputation.”—Barry Venning, Turner Society News “Smiles’s magnificent study can only deepen our understanding of an artist who continues to reveal himself in unexpected ways.”—Stephen Bann