Ploughing Up Turnips, near Slough (‘Windsor’)
- Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Date: exhibited 1809
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 1019 x 1302 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the “Ploughing Up Turnips, near Slough” by Joseph Mallord William Turner, painted in 1809. The canvas pulls you straight into a winter scene on the Thames Valley, where Windsor Castle and Eton College loom in the distance, their grandeur standing in stark contrast to the hard‑working figures below. Turner shows the turnip harvest – a key part of the emerging capitalist farm economy – in full detail: a nursing mother cradling a child, a man fixing a broken plough, a woman bent over to pull up roots. The painter blends the idealised, Arcadian landscape with the gritty reality of labour, hinting at a quiet sympathy for the workers. It was first shown in his 1809 gallery exhibition and later entered the nation’s collection under the Turner Bequest in 1856. Its bold brushwork and muted palette give the scene a timeless feel, while the juxtaposition of stone and soil invites reflection on the balance between empire and agriculture.
See it in person
Ploughing Up Turnips, near Slough (‘Windsor’) 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.
