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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > East Sussex c.1806-20 > Richmond Hill; Hastings to Margate ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Eton College Chapel; Verses (Inscription by Turner) c.1816-19

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Eton College Chapel; Verses (Inscription by Turner)’ c.1816-19
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 11 Recto:
Eton College Chapel; Verses (Inscription by Turner) circa 1816–19
D10430
Turner Bequest CXL 11
Pencil on white wove paper, 155 x 95 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry), left, running vertically
Inscribed by John Ruskin ‘11’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CXL 11’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg notwithstanding, this is Eton College Chapel, not Windsor, seen from the river and Romney Lock Island. See also folio 14 verso and 15 of the sketchbook (D10437, D10438).
Not transcribed by Finberg, Turner’s verse can be partly read as follows:
With worse than Punic faith perfidious Rome
To unoffending Carthage still held forth
The peaceful olive but round the branch
Revengeful twined the asp ...
Urged her but fresh demands to break the league
To give but color takes ... hate
See notes to folio 4 (D10416) for verse in this sketchbook related to The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire (Tate N00499)1 exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1817, and the historical background to the subject.

David Blayney Brown
July 2011

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed. 1984, pp.100–1 no.135 (pl.137).

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Eton College Chapel; Verses (Inscription by Turner) c.1816–19 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2011, 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-eton-college-chapel-verses-inscription-by-turner-r1131413, accessed 19 April 2024.