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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > East Sussex c.1806-20 > Richmond Hill; Hastings to Margate ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Verses (Inscription by Turner) c.1816-19

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Verses (Inscription by Turner)’ c.1816-19
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Verso:
Verses (Inscription by Turner) circa 1816–19
D10415
Turner Bequest CXL 3a
Pencil on white wove paper, 155 x 95 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
These lines were not transcribed by Finberg, who must have found them illegible. A few lines can be made out, as follows:
Another victim follows to the mild
Fair fleeting hope and wild ambitions child
Salmoneus, he who reard the highest wall
And mighty Bulwark to impress his power
Equal to his descent from them...
High Zeus
There is a longer version of this passage on the recto (D10414), some of it also illegible but about vanity and hubris. For Salmoneus see note to the recto.

David Blayney Brown
July 2011

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Verses (Inscription by Turner) c.1816–19 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2011, 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-r1131398, accessed 20 April 2024.