These two views of his seat, Tabley House, near Knutsford, Cheshire, were commissioned by Sir John Leicester. Turner went there in the summer of 1808. According to Farington, writing on 11 February 1809, ‘Calcott told me Turner while He was at Sir John Leicester's last Summer painted two pictures for Sir John, views of Tabley, of His 250 guineas size, yet Thomson who was there said, ‘That His time was occupied in fishing rather than painting. There are a number of drawings of the house in the ‘Tabley' sketchbooks Nos. and 3 (T.B.CIII-15v and 16 (close to No.151 though lacking the water-tower; repr. Wilkinson 1974, p.92) and T.B.CV-7, 8 and 17, the last (repr. Wilkinson 1974, p.95) being a sketch of the composition of No.150) but it is not clear whether Turner actually painted the finished oils there. The ‘Tabley' sketchbook No.1 also includes a finished oil sketch of the house from the same general viewpoint (though without the watertower) that has been cut out and folded as if for dispatch through the post (T.B.CIII- 18, repr. E. T. Cook, Hidden Treasures at the National Gallery, A Selection of Studies and Drawings by 7. M. W. Turner, R.A., 1905, p.34; see No.118).

Turner would have felt the challenge of Wilson's view of Tabley, painted for Sir John's father, just as in 1814 James Ward responded to the challenge of Turner's paintings, and was only paid £150 for his picture (see exhibition catalogue Landscape in Britain, Tate Gallery 1973-4, Nos.40 and 219, the Wilson and Ward pictures repr.). At the de Tabley sale in I827 only No. 15I was sold, being bought by Lord Egremont for 165 guineas.

The pictures were well received by the critics, again in terms that reveal some understanding of Turner's new feeling for light. Anthony Pasquin in The Morning Herald, 4 May 1809, having ended his attack on ‘The Garreteer's Petition' in verse (see No.134), was able to ... satisfactorily exclaim

Joseph, William, Mallord, is himself again!

He goes on, speaking of No.151, 'the Artist has evidently taken Cuyp for his study and it is but just to aver, that he has preserved the aerial perspective better than any other Artist within our remembrance, at least in this country. There is such repose in the whole composition …'. The success of these pictures led to further commissions, from Lord Egremont for 'Cockermouth Castle', exhibited at Turner's gallery in 1810, and 'Petworth, Sussex, the Seat of the Earl of Egremont: Dewy Morning', R.A. 1810, both now at Petworth, and from Lord Lonsdale for two views of ‘Lowther Castle, Westmorland', also shown at the R.A. in 1810 and still at Lowther; see also No.158.

One or other of these pictures was also exhibited at the Liverpool Academy in 1811 (9), as 'View of Tabley, the seat of Sir John Leicester, Bart'.