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 Perspective Lecture or Speech c.1808-11

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Draft of a Perspective Lecture or Speech’ c.1808-11
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 45 Verso:
Inscription by Turner: Draft of a Perspective Lecture or Speech circa 1808–11
D08018
Turner Bequest CXIV 45a
Pencil on white wove paper, 87 x 117 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page is taken up with the following notes:
Gentlemen
The Academy must argue [Finberg: ‘auger’] well | from their enlightened students who | presume to find errors [‘before they have proved their competence to judge’ inserted above] such presumption | if it is to hoped to [?arrive] from their | [?convictions] but until they have produced [illegible word inserted above this line or below the previous] | works it is only presumption. The | members are only Guardians of the | Art. to those who excel[...] and [?therefore] | [?modest] of [illegible word inserted above] not decorum right to | [?expect]
On folio 46 recto opposite (D08019), there is a continuation of the inserted line, making the full reading ‘before they have proved their competence to judge by their works to judge’. Similarly, at the second – illegible – insertion, the phrase continues opposite: ‘[...] their superior power’, with ‘ability’ inserted above the last word.
Maurice Davies suggests that this and the passage opposite and further notes on folios 50 verso and 51 recto (D08025, D08026) may be related to early drafts of Turner’s first or sixth Royal Academy perspective lectures, first delivered in 1811, or notes for some other speech.1 For other perspective-related notes and diagrams in this sketchbook, see the Introduction.

Matthew Imms
January 2012

1
Davies 1994, p.290.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Draft of a Perspective Lecture or Speech 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-perspective-lecture-or-r1134797, accessed 05 April 2026.