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 > Windsor and Eton Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Sailing Boat, and Inscription by Turner 1806-8

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Sailing Boat, and Inscription by Turner’ 1806-8 (Inside back cover of sketchbook)
Inside back cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Back Cover:
A Sailing Boat, and Inscription by Turner 1806–8
D40658
Turner Bequest
Pencil on white wove paper, 107 x 182 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry) sideways from right margin
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For the various sketches of barges in this sketchbook see note to folio 23 (D06094). The inscription is not of poetry but prose:
If there is virtue in finding difficulties | or worth in the base imitation of nature | & which often receives the same brain but when those | attempts arise above mediocrity then it would surely | but be a little sacrifice to those who perceive | the value of the success to foster it by terms of | cordiality that cannot block so carry a way be | as those spoken of ( convey doubt to the expecting | individual | for a ... as the one that ... B. from Grave to those | offering [forming inserted] a new style... and shall ... | feel fear the ... of art but may serve as the ... | shall to somehow but to presume more rain | the beacon to a Headland which would be a sundial | avoided as the danger of ...disgust...
Although hard to read, enough of this passage can be made out to see that Turner is thinking about the nature of criticism and contrasting the encouragement and discouragement meted out to artists. There may thus be some connection with ideas underlying his drafts of an ‘Ode to Discord’ on folios 83 and 83 verso of the sketchbook (D06164; D06165). See also Introduction.

David Blayney Brown
September 2010

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘A Sailing Boat, and Inscription by Turner 1806–8 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2010, 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-a-sailing-boat-and-inscription-by-turner-r1130360, accessed 22 September 2024.