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 46 Recto:
Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) circa 1808
D06810
Turner Bequest CII 46
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry) on white wove paper, 76 x 115 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘46’ top left, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CII 46’ top left, inverted
 
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:
Her Prayers then repeated in hope closed her eyes
That Kind heaven would drive from her pillow
The Phantom dim sprite as he fled often sighs
Thy Lover he is save’d from the Billow
This passage is a variant of one on folio 45 verso (D06809).

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-r1130903, accessed 26 April 2024.