Hunt begins for Turner prize: his long-dead horse

Charity asks homeowners to report large bones found in gardens in search for the artist’s model, Crop-ear

CHIEF REPORTER DESPERATELY seeking: the remains of one elderly horse, once owned by Britain’s greatest artist.

A charity set up in memory of JMW Turner has begun the hunt for Cropear, the horse that the artist used as a model in some of his best known paintings. Contemporary accounts suggest that the horse was buried on land owned by Turner in Twickenham in south-west London.

A heritage officer, paid for out of Lottery funding, is being recruited by the Turner’s House Trust to lead the search for the “cross between a horse and a pony”. The charity is urging homeowners to report any unusual findings in their gardens. Very large bones of an equine nature will presumably be key.

Crop-ear is not without controversy. It is said to have died a grisly death while Turner – it has been claimed – struggled with capturing the equine form and so brought in a ringer to help paint horses on to canvas. He was forced to deny the scurrilous suggestion.

Crop-ear was Turner’s main means of travel during the years he spent at Sandycombe Lodge, now open to the public after a £2.4 million renovation, part funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. He bought land in Twickenham in 1807 and built his own house there in 1812 before selling it in 1826. According to contemporary reports, Crop-ear came to a sticky end, strangled by its own reins. The horse was said to be buried on land owned by Turner, either within the grounds of Sandycombe Lodge or else on a meadow he owned nearby. The meadow is now home to a pub, and rows of Victorian terrace houses.

“The meadow was probably where the horse was buried,” said Catherine Parry-wingfield, chairman of the Turner’s House Trust. “He is an important horse because he appears as a model in some of Turner’s paintings. Crop-ear would be a wonderful discovery. In Frosty Morning, which hangs in Tate Britain, the general opinion is Crop-ear is modelled twice. According to contemporary anecdotes, the poor thing strangled itself with its own reins. Turner was fond of that horse and quite distressed when he died.”

The charity is appealing for anybody who lives near the Victorian St Margaret’ s Tavern pub, to register any interesting finds. In The Life of JMW Turner, a biography written by Walter Thornbury and published a decade after the artist’s death, the author described how Turner would use the horse to pull a small carriage containing his “sketching apparatus”.

The author goes on: “He has immortalised his old Crop-ear in his Frosty Morning, which is now exhibited. There are two horses, but they are both taken from Crop-ear. Turner could not paint a horse; still he has been very happy in catching the stiffness of old Crop-ear’s fore-legs.”