Although identified as Petworth when first listed in the National Gallery inventory in 1905 the picture depicts no recognisable room. It is however the culmination of a series of oil paintings of interiors associated with Petworth (see Nos.336 and 338) and is also a development of the theme of a number of the Petworth bodycolours on blue paper (Nos.343-362). David Thomas, in an unpublished lecture, has suggested that this picture represents Turner's reaction to the news of his friend and patron Lord Egremont's death in 1837. The suggestion of a catafalque with coat-of-arms, surrounded by dogs, and the sculptures that possibly allude to Lord Egremont's collection of Antique and contemporary examples, support this. All is in a state of dissolution; above all from the power of light flooding in from the right. The heavy drying-crackle in the foreground, rare in Turner's work, indicates his haste. It is also fascinating in that, until recent restoration, it revealed a layer of bright, untempered red underlying much of the foreground. The strong greens are also impossible to explain from the point of view of representation and are used colouristically and expressionistically.