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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Marine subjects c.1803-14 > Spithead Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Verses, Arithmetic &c (Inscriptions by Turner) 1807

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Verses, Arithmetic &c (Inscriptions by Turner)’ 1807 (Inside back cover of sketchbook)
Inside back cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Back Cover:
Verses, Arithmetic &c (Inscriptions by Turner) 1807
D40614
Inscribed by Turner in ink with verses and dates (see main catalogue entry), and with dates, numbers and accounts (see main catalogue entry), bottom right, descending vertically
Inscribed by Charles Turner in ink ‘No 329 Contains | 64 leaves in Pencil | & Pen & Ink | C Turner’ and by John Prescott Knight and Charles Lock Eastlake in pencil ‘J.P.K’, C.L.E.’ botto left, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘C’ bottom left, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Rosalind Mallord Turner’s reading of the verse for the 1990 Tate exhibition is retained here:
Hind head tho[u] cloud-capt winded hill 
In every wind that heaven does fill 
On thy dark hearth [? heath] the traveler mourns 
Ice[y] nights approach &     groans 
The low wan sun has downward sunk 
The steamy Vale looks dark and dank 
The doubtful roads scarce     seen 
Nor sky lights give the doubtful green 
But all seem[s] d[r]ear & horror 
Hark the kreaking irons 
Hark the screeching owl 
This is presumably Turner’s own work, inspired by the views of Gibbet Hill between Hindhead and Godalming in this sketchbook; see especially folio 22 (D06540; Turner Bequest C 21). The numbers, written by Turner in pencil, probably represent bank drafts, accounts and, as Finberg suggested, Navy Notes. They should not be taken as representing the dates on which the sketchbook was used, as Spencer-Longhurst has recently implied. They read:
No. 6920.      13 Nov., 1807     50 
N. Note.  
     3637.      8 Augt. 1807     100 
     6611.      6 Sep.  1807      10 
    36497.     22 Sept. 1807       1 
    20500.     17 Sep. 1807.       1.  
The remaining inscriptions represent the endorsement of the Executors of the Turner Bequest; see also Introduction to the sketchbook.

David Blayney Brown
May 2006

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Verses, Arithmetic &c (Inscriptions by Turner) 1807 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2006, 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-arithmetic-c-inscriptions-by-turner-r1139152, accessed 19 April 2024.