J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Thames sketchbooks c.1804-14 > Greenwich Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Verses (Inscription by Turner) c.1808

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Verses (Inscription by Turner)’ c.1808
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 6 Recto:
Verses (Inscription by Turner) circa 1808
D06731
Turner Bequest CII 6
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry) on white wove paper, 115 x 76 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘6’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CII 6’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For the longer draft poem to which Turner’s verses belong, see Introduction to the sketchbook and note to folio 1 verso (D06722). Finberg did not transcribe the verses on this leaf and the reading given here was first made by Rosalind Mallord Turner for the 1990 Tate exhibition:
The Sun-crackt path and summer [bell inserted] blue
By children strew’d at play or fairing new
Delighting boys with brightening rays the [days inserted] display
[gay inserted]
or calls or broken silver shines the way
That now so slippery prove to plough-boy tread
As heavy as his team, slow pacing to their shed
When loud insects in summer ray
Across a road in summer stray
The [?exhausted] [struggling inserted] beetle in rut delug’d around
The Winter darkened & by drown’d

David Blayney Brown
March 2007

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Verses (Inscription by Turner) c.1808 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2007, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-verses-inscription-by-turner-r1130824, accessed 24 April 2024.