Fire at the Grand Storehouse of the Tower of London
- Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Date: 1841
- Medium: Watercolour on paper
- Dimensions: support: 235 x 325 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is “Fire at the Grand Storehouse of the Tower of London” by Joseph Mallord William Turner, a small watercolour on paper from 1841. It’s a dramatic night scene that captures the blaze that tore through the Grand Storehouse on 30 October 1841, a disaster that shook London and the nation. Turner, already famed for his masterful handling of light and atmosphere, uses loose, gestural strokes to render the flickering flames, the thick black smoke rising into the sky, and the pale glow of a distant fire reflecting on the surrounding walls. The work is part of the Turner Bequest that was accepted by the nation in 1856, so it sits alongside many of his other sketches and studies that document history through the eye of a keen observer. The piece is an evocative reminder of how Turner combined historical documentation with a painterly sense of mood, turning a tragic event into a haunting visual narrative that still feels immediate to us today.
See it in person
Fire at the Grand Storehouse of the Tower of London is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
