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 (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1808

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Verses (Inscriptions by Turner)’ c.1808
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 40 Recto:
Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) circa 1808
D06798
Turner Bequest CII 40
Inscribed by Turner in pencil and ink (see main catalogue entry) on white wove paper, 115 x 76 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘40’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CII 40’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For the longer draft poems to which Turner’s verses belong, see Introduction to the sketchbook. Finberg did not transcribe the verses on this leaf, and the reading given here was made by Rosalind Mallord Turner for the 1990 Tate exhibition. The first five lines are written in ink, near the gutter, the remaining four in pencil near the foredge:
But nature with her care renew
Nature kindly will renew
Thy strings with music & with touches true
Till natures pours anew
Thy sweets with tenderest touches true
The dewy drops on thy tomb never fade
but Popes lost mansion sank into the ground
Sure memory still unto [?their] worth adheres
Then let that honor on the[e] long be found
Turner alludes to the demolished villa of Alexander Pope at Twickenham, and the poetic harp or lyre.

David Blayney Brown
March 2007

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Verses (Inscriptions 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-inscriptions-by-turner-r1130891, accessed 24 April 2024.