Crypt of Kirkstall Abbey, from Liber Studiorum (Book of Studies)

The 17th century landscape painter Claude Lorrain recorded his creations in an album of drawings called the Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth). By 1807, a printmaking project aimed at publishing the drawings, then in a famous English collection, had been underway for thirty years. Claude's book and the English project inspired J.M.W. Turner to publicize his own landscapes by means of an ambitious printmaking project, the Liber Studiorum (Book of Studies). In most cases, he collaborated with skilled technicians, but Crypt of Kirkstall Abbey is one of only eleven prints in the series for which Turner completed all phases of the work, including engraving and mezzotinting.