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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Work for Earls Egremont and Lonsdale ... > Lowther Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) 1809

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Verses (Inscriptions by Turner)’ 1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 15 Verso:
Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) 1809
D07877
Turner Bequest CXIII 15a
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry) on white wove paper, 114 x 83 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
These verses were first transcribed by Jack Lindsay, and then by Rosalind Mallord Turner, whose reading is largely followed here:
O Graceous power that preserves us here
Chears us in Hope and checks us from despair
That turns away the blot of one mischance
And made the accident turn this advance
To teach us how unfortunate to know
In works of goodness is to all below
See Introduction to the sketchbook and note to folio 13 verso (D07873) for Turner’s poem about a shooting accident, to which these verses must belong.

David Blayney Brown
July 2009

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Verses (Inscriptions by Turner) 1809 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2009, 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-r1135832, accessed 23 April 2024.