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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Farnley Hall and Yorkshire c.1808-24 > Woodcock Shooting Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Stanzas Referring to Jonathan Wathen Phipps and Baroness Howe (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1812-13

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Stanzas Referring to Jonathan Wathen Phipps and Baroness Howe (Inscriptions by Turner)’ c.1812-13
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Verso:
Stanzas Referring to Jonathan Wathen Phipps and Baroness Howe (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1812–13
D09061
Turner Bequest CXXIX 2a
Ink on white wove paper, 110 x 178 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry)
Watermarked ‘[WHAT]MAN | [180]5’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Written from right to left down the page, as if at the back of the book, Turner’s inscriptions reads:
[in ink]
Doth prying Phipps now pr
actice on
Credulity or Gain
To look and lie in practiced skill
Or lie to look but ^to lie at will
Must act since he knows Howe
[in pencil]
or practice by knowing Howe
or Howe know more by [deleted] practice deep
That hungry dogs ner look before they leep
Doth prying Phipps continue now
To practice or lie still
To look to lie – but lie at will
Must act since he knows Howe
   To prove his skill
Must act1
These stanzas continue the sequence of verses in this sketchbook on the theme of the relationship of Jonathan Wathen Phipps and Baroness Howe; see inside front cover (D40818).

David Hill
October 2008

1
The transcription here is indebted to, but differs in some respects from that offered by Rosalind Mallord Turner in Wilton and Mallord Turner 1990.

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Stanzas Referring to Jonathan Wathen Phipps and Baroness Howe (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1812–13 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2008, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-stanzas-referring-to-jonathan-wathen-phipps-and-baroness-r1146783, accessed 16 April 2024.