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 > Greenwich Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1808

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Verses (Inscriptions by Turner)’ c.1808
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Verso:
Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) circa 1808
D06724
Turner Bequest CII 2a
Inscribed by Turner in pencil and ink (see main catalogue entry) on white wove paper, 115 x 76 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For the longer draft poems to which Turner’s verses belong, see Introduction to the sketchbook and note to folio 1 verso (D06722). 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:
Alas that Woman should so fear its sway
That against nature, nature should so obey
Alas that man should so deceitfull prove
That for thy show should so impatient rove
Change after change in Hypercritic Love
Should so neglect the breast that for him fears
Turn from that Eye for him oft wet with tears
Save for the last one or two lines, this passage seems to have been written first in pencil.

David Blayney Brown
March 2007

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1808 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2007, 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-r1130817, accessed 18 April 2024.