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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Liber Studiorum notes c.1807-19 > Finance Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: A Draft of Poetry c.1807-14

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: A Draft of Poetry’ c.1807-14
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Verso:
Inscription by Turner: A Draft of Poetry c.1807–14
D08289
Turner Bequest CXXII 4a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 69 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s ten short lines, written in the upper half of the page turned vertically, are faint and difficult to make out. A very fragmentary attempt at a transcription is given here:
[?‘T...’ or ‘F...’]
In life gay may
a [...] to grey
D[...] all [...]
[...] all beliefs
No Fish and then, the beuful [...]ay
[...]mmer
[...] to chair
[...] one [...]mmer
[...] one Beauty’s hair
Although the lines generally comprise only three or four words, they appear to be poetry.1 There is a similar inscription on folio 3 verso (D08287). The deleted ‘No Fish’ is comparable to the remark ‘Written at Purley on the Thames rainy morning no fishing’ inscribed below verse in the 1809 Frittlewell sketchbook (Tate D07756; Turner Bequest CXII inside back cover), perhaps suggesting that the current lines were composed during a moment of waterside contemplation.

Matthew Imms
September 2013

1
For the fullest account of such material see Andrew Wilton and Rosalind Mallord Turner, Painting and Poetry: Turner’s ‘Verse Book’ and his Work of 1804–1812, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1990.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: A Draft of Poetry c.1807–14 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2013, 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-inscription-by-turner-a-draft-of-poetry-r1147765, accessed 17 July 2024.