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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Margate, London and Surrey c.1829-45 > Kent Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: A Draft of Poetry c.1830

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: A Draft of Poetry’ c.1830
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 30 Recto:
Inscription by Turner: A Draft of Poetry c.1830
D35810
Turner Bequest CCCLXIII 29
Pencil on white wove paper, 76 x 98 mm
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘29’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXIII – 29’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the whole page is taken up with often illegible lines of verse, tentatively transcribed here:
Th[...] on the lonely shore the bold
brave Lover stands
[...] upon the fair Evening [?skies]
[?Shine forth, fair Venus] in the w[...]
Sky [...] the A[...]
the pale strand and [?its very]
Wave
[...] with [...] the [?will in]
[...] by [? ‘light’ or ‘night’] hid the distant shore
And half obscurd his [...] Eye [?the]
The first two lines reflect Jack Lindsay’s reading.1 For the several pages of poetry in this sketchbook and a discussion of their theme informed by previous commentators, see the Introduction.

Matthew Imms
September 2016

1
Linday 1966, p.197.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: A Draft of Poetry c.1830 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-inscription-by-turner-a-draft-of-poetry-r1183772, accessed 26 April 2024.