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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Thames sketchbooks c.1804-14 > River Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Verses (Inscription by Turner) c.1807-8

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Verses (Inscription by Turner)’ c.1807-8
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 68 Recto:
Verses (Inscription by Turner) circa 1807–8
D06053
Turner Bequest XCVI 66
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry) on white laid paper, 163 x 92 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘66’ top right, running vertically
Stamped in black ‘XCVI 66’ top right, running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
From this leaf and continuing as far as the inside back cover of the sketchbook (D40653) Turner has jotted drafts of a long poem lamenting the demolition of Alexander Pope’s villa at Twickenham; for the demolition, see Introduction and note to folio 45 (D06015), which has a sketch related to Turner’s picture Pope’s Villa at Twickenham, During its Dilapidation, shown at his own gallery in 1808 (on the London art market in 2008).1
The verses in this sketchbook anticipate the more coherent poem ‘On the Demolition of Pope-House at Twickenham’ in Turner’s Verse Book (private collection).2 They make many allusions to pastoral iconography, mythology and other poets associated with Thames scenery including James Thomson. Although they defeated Finberg, they were in large part deciphered by Rosalind Mallord Turner for the 1990 Tate catalogue.3 There it was assumed that they can be read as a continuous whole, but this is arguable on grounds of content and style (at times degenerating into doggerel) and also because passages are irregularly spaced and written in different directions and media. It is perhaps safer to regard them as fragments and in this catalogue they are cited as they appear on individual leaves. Readings are based on R.M. Turner’s, with significant variations noted in square brackets. Text on this leaf reads:
Pope’s House & G [?arden] the curved river entwind
In Twickenham lower reach Isis inspired
In Kew sunshine Tompson the moral mind
The noble say that man himself might stem [Turner: staunch]
This throbing wound
The panting swain to beg a [Turner: in] favour rose
Some heavenly honor nor [Turner: ner] did worth oppose
In vain the ... when sweet horns a[re] heard
dance the gay hours in Tw[ickenham’s] sound
Stallion and Hunter she ...view
and he would pity
In deep dun gloom Umbrage throw
An [Turner: in] awfull silence
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, pp.150–3.
3
Published ibid., pp.153–5
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
October 2006

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Verses (Inscription by Turner) c.1807–8 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2006, 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-inscription-by-turner-r1130231, accessed 19 September 2024.