Joseph Mallord William Turner

Verses, and Note on Perspective in Raphael’s Tapestry Cartoon ‘Paul Preaching at Athens’ (Inscriptions by Turner)

c.1808

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

License this image

In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Greenwich Sketchbook
Medium
Ink on paper
Dimensions
Support: 115 × 76 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D06766
Turner Bequest CII 24

Catalogue entry

For the longer draft poems to which Turner’s verses belong, see Introduction to the sketchbook. Finberg did not transcribe the verses on this leaf, and the reading given here was first made by Rosalind Mallord Turner for the 1990 Tate exhibition:
The smoking roll is eat with greedy haste
And hope and fear depicted on his face [pace inserted]
His forfeit paid if avarice will allow
To pay save a newly crave[n] cowar[d] blow
Last in privation further loss of self
Such small beginnings are the germ of Wealth
There is also a note on Raphael, written with the sketchbook inverted. This concludes remarks mainly on folio 24 verso (D06767), for which see note for full transcription and comment.

David Blayney Brown
March 2007

Read full Catalogue entry

Explore

You might like

Left Right

In the shop

Browse the shop