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

This drawing is one of four (including Tate D12100, D12102, D12103; Turner Bequest CLIV B, D, E) on the front and back of a single sheet of paper, folded in half, and presently unmounted. Finberg 1909 listed each as separate items, and the individual drawings have been stamped with their own Turner Bequest numbers. Consequently, they are catalogued separately here. For clarity, the present drawing is the left-hand drawing of the verso of the present sheet and D12102 (CLIV D) is the right half. D12100 and D12103 (CLIV B and E) make up the recto. See notes to D12100 for the historical background to these subjects, connected with the English Civil War, and their likely purpose as illustrations to a history of the period.

The present drawing is an unused design for the series and appears to have been a frontispiece to a section dealing with, as inscribed; ‘Resistance to Oppression’. The titles are let into a decorated tablet with at the top crossed scrolls inscribed ‘Petition of Rights’ and ‘Commons Remonstrance’, beneath a hat (or close-fitting cap) inscribed ‘Jo Hamde’. The latter was rightly identified by Finberg as the famous Parliamentarian John Hampden, who championed the act of parliament called ‘The Petition of Rights’ in 1628, one of the root acts of the Civil War, and also the Grand Remonstrance in 1641, in which Parliament listed its grievances against King Charles I for which he was, with others, impeached.

Verso:

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