Joseph Mallord William Turner

Eton College Chapel; Verses (Inscription by Turner)

c.1816–19

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Richmond Hill; Hastings to Margate Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 155 × 95 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D10430
Turner Bequest CXL 11

Catalogue entry

Finberg notwithstanding, this is Eton College Chapel, not Windsor, seen from the river and Romney Lock Island. See also folio 14 verso and 15 of the sketchbook (D10437, D10438).
Not transcribed by Finberg, Turner’s verse can be partly read as follows:
With worse than Punic faith perfidious Rome
To unoffending Carthage still held forth
The peaceful olive but round the branch
Revengeful twined the asp ...
Urged her but fresh demands to break the league
To give but color takes ... hate
See notes to folio 4 (D10416) for verse in this sketchbook related to The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire (Tate N00499)1 exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1817, and the historical background to the subject.

David Blayney Brown
July 2011

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed. 1984, pp.100–1 no.135 (pl.137).

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