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 (Inscriptions by Turner) 1807

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Verses (Inscriptions by Turner)’ 1807
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 76 Recto:
Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) 1807
D06608
Turner Bequest C 71
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry) on off-white wove paper, 187 x 118 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘79’ top right, running vertically
Stamped in black ‘C 71’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Rosalind Mallord Turner’s reading of the verses for the 1990 Tate exhibition is retained here:
A shepherd boy as he drove along
And fleecy charges [along the Thames side inserted]
Sought the Old Swain in his usual seat
With faltering accents his tender lambkin bleat
Tell all the news he fraughtful came
the ... of Pope well earned fame
Alas my lamb my heart full can have heard
The mournful Thames sent back the dolf sound
When balmy wispers on the ground rebound
The mournfull rustling of the aspen tall
As yesteryear even some day did [forever inserted] befall
To homely remains
This must be Turner’s own work, in imitation of the Augustan poets who it associates with the scenery of the Thames; Alexander Pope is mentioned and the melancholy tone of the second stanza with its mention of ‘homely remains’ must spring from the demolition in 1807 of his villa at Twickenham, by order of Baroness Howe who built a new house in its place. Turner was much affected by her act of sacrilege. His memorial picture, Pope’s Villa at Twickenham (on the London art market, 2008),1 was exhibited in his gallery in 1808, and he wrote a long poem on its demolition in his Verse Book.2 For another version of the present verses, see folio 87 verso of the Boats, Ice sketchbook (Tate D06713; Turner Bequest CI 87a).

David BlayneyBrown
January 2010

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.55–6 no.72 (pl.82); Sotheby’s sale, 9 July 2008 (lot 91).
2
Wilton and Mallord Turner 1990, pp.150–3.

How to cite

David BlayneyBrown, ‘Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) 1807 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2010, 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-inscriptions-by-turner-r1139142, accessed 26 April 2024.