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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Sandycombe Lodge c.1808-12 > Windmill and Lock Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: Draft of a Tribute to Sir Joshua Reynolds for a Perspective Lecture c.1808-11

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Draft of a Tribute to Sir Joshua Reynolds for a Perspective Lecture’ c.1808-11
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 22 Recto:
Inscription by Turner: Draft of a Tribute to Sir Joshua Reynolds for a Perspective Lecture circa 1808–11
D07993
Turner Bequest CXIV 22
Pencil on white wove paper, 117 x 87 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘22’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CXIV – 22’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned vertically, the upper two thirds of the page are taken up with the following notes:
It is the lot of man to follow | [?mine] is an [?In...] | but to add my tribute of thanks | to his [?ext...] is ever wise if a | duty it would be pleasant but | if you have asked [?whether] it |
would be highly so to my | endeavours in the [?present] | instance for [...]
Maurice Davies has described this as a draft of a tribute to the late Sir Joshua Reynolds, first President of the Royal Academy, relating to early drafts of Turner’s first Royal Academy perspective lecture,1 delivered in January 1811 (see the Introduction to the sketchbook). Turner had been present at the last of Reynolds’s own series of presidential Discourses.2 There are other drafts of this kind on folios 45 verso, 46 recto, 50 verso and 51 recto (D08018, D08019, D08025, D08026).
1
Davies 1994, p.290.
2
See James Hamilton, Turner: A Life, London 1997, p.23.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
January 2012

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Draft of a Tribute to Sir Joshua Reynolds for a Perspective Lecture c.1808–11 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2012, 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-inscription-by-turner-draft-of-a-tribute-to-sir-joshua-r1134769, accessed 25 April 2024.