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 > The Aqueduct Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Verses on 'Sweet Independence...' (Inscription by Turner); The Gable of a Cottage c.1816-18

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  • Inside front cover of sketchbook
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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Verses on 'Sweet Independence...' (Inscription by Turner); The Gable of a Cottage’ c.1816-18 (Inside front cover of sketchbook)
Inside front cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Front Cover:
Verses on ‘Sweet Independence...’ (Inscription by Turner); The Gable of a Cottage c.1816–18
D40713
Turner Bequest CLII inside cover
Pen and ink and pencil on white laid paper, 180 x 117 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink with three verses (see main catalogue entry) at top of page, struck through with a thick pencil line
Endorsed by the Executors of the Turner Bequest in brown ink ‘No. 256 | Containing 11 leaves –| Pencil Sketches – |’ and signed by Henry Scott Trimmer ‘H. S. Trimmer’ and Charles Turner ‘C. Turner’, initialled by Charles Lock Eastlake in pencil ‘C.L.E’ and John Prescott Knight ‘J.P.K.’ and inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘5 taken out JR’
Inscribed by unknown hand in pencil ‘256’ above the Executors’ inscription, centre, and ‘CLI1’ at right
Stamped in brown ‘CLII’ left
Turner used this page to draft three verses of a poem:
Sweet independence, rough is thy nature, hardy [?] sincere
Tho gives the humble roof content devoid of fear
Even of tomorrows fate, and adds a blissful joy
To its perhaps lone inmate, [...?] without alloy
To thee the sociall being carrolls as he goes
Or tells his prattling babes [tales|?] at his return
Even to thy honoured name the whitened wede [?] ever glows deleted shows
With acts which tilling makes his bosom glow
Through thee the mind who [...?] innate
A quality possesses beyond [deleted owns] the crown of wealth
Guides its self choice own no concentrating frown [?]
But self recourse a personal Estate
Far beyond purchase [?] of the grasp of state:
These appear to be a slightly more refined version of the verses drafted on Tate D11974; Turner Bequest CLIII 1, opposite.

David Hill
September 2008

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Verses on ‘Sweet Independence...’ (Inscription by Turner); The Gable of a Cottage c.1816–18 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 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-verses-on-sweet-independence-inscription-by-turner-the-gable-r1147000, accessed 25 April 2024.