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 > River Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1807-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Verses (Inscriptions by Turner)’ c.1807-8
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 71 Recto:
Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) circa 1807–8
D06057
Turner Bequest XCVI 69
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry) on white laid paper, 163 x 92 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘69’ top right, running vertically
Stamped in black ‘XCVI 69’ top right, running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
See note to folio 68 of the sketchbook (D06053) for background to these verses. Rosalind Mallord Turner’s reading published in the 1990 Tate catalogue is adopted here, with significant variations noted in square brackets:
Proudly alone
Her straining canvas courts each raging gale
Glides with the command of canvas sail
But Poesy the [?pride] of tuneful swains
That courted nature on the Thames
On Richmond’s crownd hill or meads
or Ham’s ... the season leads
Her rosy fingers May for him morn
or sunny summer golden river dawn
Autumnal Mist bedecks the [ripen inserted] corn
or Winter freezing fingers on the naked thorn
all dust by him who ruled the show
With chearful numbers sing the V year
Thomson the [?founder] of the moral man
Adore his Maker as his verse ran
As T[hames] fair Banks reflect her var[ied] dyes
the azure vault[ed] skies
He sang as the h [runs]
in gazing between the silver river [returns]
Here Turner alludes mainly to Alexander Pope but also to James Thomson and his nature poem The Seasons (1730).

David Blayney Brown
October 2006

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1807–8 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2006, 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-inscriptions-by-turner-r1130235, accessed 20 September 2024.