Letters of J. M. W.

Turner
Author(s): Pamela J. Willetts
Source: The British Museum Quarterly , 1960, Vol. 22, No. 3/4 (1960), pp. 59-62
Published by: British Museum

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 Thanks to the researches of Sir George Warner and Professors Homburger
and Wormald we know that both the typical acanthus ornament and the figure
style of the Benedictional, as of the manuscripts of the 'Winchester' school in
general, were derived not from English archetypes but from manuscripts and
ivories produced in more than one of the great Carolingian schools which
flourished in Northern France and on the Rhine during the ninth century. At
the end of the seventh century the painters of the Codex Amiatinus and the
Lindisfarne Gospels borrowed the figure style of sixth-century Italy, but
Eadfrith's magnificent decoration in the Gospels is a purely Insular blend of
vigorous native traditions, which were carried to the Continent by the English
missionaries of the eighth century and contributed to the formation of the
Carolingian schools mentioned above. AEthelwold's painters were less fortunate
than Eadfrith. Due to the wounds inflicted on it by the invasions of the ninth
century, the native tradition available to them was too impoverished to serve
their high purpose, and they had to go back to its brilliant Continental offshoot.
Exhibited side by side, the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Benedictional of St.
IEthelwold succinctly and magnificently epitomize the growth, decline, and
rebirth of Anglo-Saxon civilization. T. J. BROWN
I Wanley's Diary, B.M., Lansdowne MS. 771,
Century (1926), pp. 7-9, pls. 4-7; A. Boeckler,
If. Ib, 20b, 33, 43b. Cf. Lansdowne MSS. 771,
Abendldndische Miniaturen (1930), pp. 53-54,
1. 20; 772, f. 64. &c., pl. 45; F. Wormald, 'Decorated Initials in
2 'A Dissertation on St. AJthelwold's Bene- English MSS. from A.D. 900 to IIoo', Archaeo-
dictional', Archaeologia, xxiv (1832), pp. I-I117,logia, xci (1945), PP. 131-3; T. D. Kendrick, Late
pis i-xxxii. Saxon and Fiking Art (1949), pp. 6-Io, pls. iii-v;
3 Sir George Warner and H. A. Wilson, The D. Talbot Rice, English Art; 871-1100 (1952),
Benedictional of Saint AEthelwold, Roxburghe pp. 185-9, pls. 48-51; Margaret Rickert, Paint-
Club, I19o. ing in Britain: the Middle Ages (1954), PP. 42-44,
4 Shorter but no less important studies of the &c., pls. 26-27; A. Grabar and C. Nordenfalk,
manuscript have since been published by Professor Early Medieval Painting (1957), PP. 179-83.
Otto Homburger, Die Anfdnge der Malschule von 5 Mr. H. M. Nixon considers that the remains
Winchester im X. 7ahrhundert (1912), pp. 7-43, of the late seventeenth-century covers inlaid in the
and by Professor Francis Wormald, The Bene- modern binding are not in fact the work of Samuel
dictional of St. Ethelwold, 1959. Other notices Mearne, binder to Charles II (cf. Warner, op. cit.,
include J. O. Westwood, Miniatures and Orna- p. xliii).
ments ofAnglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts (i 868), 6 See Wormald, op. cit., p. Io; cf. N. R. Ker,
pl. 45; The Palaeographical Society, Ist ser. A Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-
(1874-83), pls. 142-4; E. G. Millar, English Saxon (1957), p. 431.
Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth

LETTERS OF J. M. W. TURNER
THE acquisition in 1959
Joseph Mallord William Turnerof(1775-185I),
over eighty
the painter,autograph
admirably letters and documents of
supplements the collection of autograph notes for his lectures as Professor
of Perspective to the Royal Academy (Add. MS. 46151) and the few letters
which were the only Turner manuscripts hitherto preserved in the Department
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of Manuscripts. The new letters formerly belonged to Dr. A. J. Finberg who
published or quoted about half of them in The Life of 7. M. W. Turner, R.A.,
1939. They are, at present, inserted or lightly mounted in two volumes (Add.
MSS. 50118-I9) and cover the periods 1809-27 and 1828-51 respec-
tively.
Turner's letters, whether business or personal, are lively if inelegant. The
business letters show his concern over the details of his commissions. A series

(17 November 1 809-I 3 April I8 12) to James Wyatt, carver and gilder of Oxford,
relate to a painting of the High Street, Oxford, commissioned by Wyatt, who
proposed to publish the view as an engraving. These letters include such advice
as the following: on the size of the engraving,-'it is rather difficult to get a
large one done, for many engravers think the print of Wilson's Niobe large, but
it appears to me the proportion should be about 3 to 2, or 18 inchs by 30 inchs'
(20 ? November 1809); and on engravers-'their prices are as different as their
abilities', with a list of those he recommends (23 November 8o09). Turner was
anxious to be accurate in the details of the dress of the figures in the picture:
thus he writes, 'is it right or wrong to introduce the Bishop crossing the street
in conversation(?) with his robes, whether he should wear a cap ? What kind of a
staff the Beadles use, and if they wear caps' (28 February 18 1o). Turner notes in
his next letter (14 March I 8 Io) '. .. I took the hint, for the sake of color, to intro-
duce some Ladies'; they may have displaced the Bishop for he does not appear in
the completed picture. Wyatt wished this and a companion picture to be exhibited
at the Royal Academy in 1812 and Turner's last letter to him in this collection
(13 April 1812) brought the news 'Your Pictures are hung at the Academy, but
not to my satisfaction at least . . . if you still think, notwithstanding there
[sic] situations are as unfortunate as could possibly be allotted them (from the
Pictures close to them), that their remaining there may be advantageous to you-
there they shall remain.'
Turner's transactions with W. B. Cooke, the engraver, are represented by a
few letters and his autograph receipt to Cooke for /22. Ios., dated I I June 18 14,
for three drawings ('Lyme Landes-End and Poole') in the series made to illustrate
the latter's Picturesque Views of the Southern Coast of England, 18 14-26. Turner's
autograph draft (October? 18 18) and a copy of the final agreement (9 February
1819) for thirty-six drawings of the Rhine between Cologne and Mayence relate
to a later project which was forestalled by Ackermann's Tour of the Rhine and
therefore abandoned; Finberg notes, however (op. cit., p. 256), that at least two
Rhine drawings by Turner, of the exact size (i 11 x 81 ins.) specified in this
agreement, are extant.
Of Turner's academic work as Professor of Perspective to the Royal Academy,
a post which he held from 1807 to 1838, there is little mention, except, obliquely,
in a letter-poem addressed to John Taylor, the editor of The Sun. Turner's thanks

60

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for an encouraging notice of his second lecture on perspective given on 14
January 18 I , are conveyed in the following verse:

THANKS gentle Sir for what you sent

With so much kindness praise-'besprente'
Upon a Subject which forsooth
Has nothing in it but its truth
Where lines so round about applied
At last gives the parabolide.
Conmixt, perplexing and obscure,
Fitter to puzzle then allure; ....

A number of discursive personal letters to James Holworthy, the water-

colourist, take up much of the remainder of the first volume (Add. MS. 5o I 8).
Several describe the discomforts of a sketching trip in a singularly inclement
summer: 'Weather incessantly(?) wet. I shall be web-foot like a Drake-excepting
the curled feather-but I must proceed-Northward' (31 July 18 16); again, 'A
most confounded pass. Tho' on Horseback still the passage out of Tees-dale
leaves every thing far behind for difficulty--Bogged most compleatly Horse
and its Rider and nine hours making I I miles' (i i September 1816).
Among the later letters, one to Thomas Griffith (I February 1844) reflects
the growing demand for Turner's pictures. Griffith had acted for some years as
agent for the sale of Turner's work and was now, apparently, receiving inquiries
for the unsold earlier pictures, which were stored in Turner's gallery. Turner
describes their condition: 'The large Pictures I am rather fond of tho' it is a
pity they are subject to neglect and Dirt. The Palestrina I shall open my mouth
widely e're I part with it. The Pas de Calais is now in the Gallery (suffering). The
Orange Merchant I could not get at-if I could find a young man acquainted
with Picture cleaning and would help me to clean accidental stains away, [it]
would be a happiness to drag them from their dark abode.'
John Ruskin and his father are the recipients of several notes in the second
volume (Add. MS. 50o 19). Of these perhaps the most interesting is Turner's
first letter to the younger Ruskin, whom he did not meet until June 1840.
Angered by an attack in Blackwood's Magazine on the three Turner pictures
exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1836, Ruskin (then seventeen) had written
a reply which he proposed to send to the editor for publication. On his father's
advice, he first submitted a fair copy to Turner under cover of his initials 'J. R'.
Turner's characteristic reply (6 October i836) runs: 'I beg to thank you for
your zeal, kindness, and trouble you have taken in my behalf, in regard of the
criticism of Blackwoods Mag for Oct respecting my works; but I never move in
these matters-they are of no import save mischief and the meal tub. .. .' Ruskin
later (I 9 May 1880) endorsed the letter, 'The first letter I ever received from
6I

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Turner; thanking me for a letter in defence of his picture of "Juliet and her nurse"
the first I ever wrote about his works.' Ruskin's article is not in the present
collection. It was apparently sent, as Turner suggested in a postscript to the
letter just quoted, to H. A. J. Munro, the purchaser of 'Juliet and her nurse',
and Ruskin, himself, was unable to trace it in later years (Finberg, op. cit.,
p. 364).
Other letters to friends include many to the Wells family, William Frederick
Wells, who first suggested to Turner the idea of the Liber Studiorum, a series of
landscape drawings engraved under Turner's own supervision (cf. Finberg,
op. cit., p. 128) of which the first number was published in I 807, and his daugh-
ters Emma and Clara (afterwards Mrs. Wheeler). A note ( 9 March I829)
declining an invitation to dine and ending with the lament 'Time Time Time
So(?) more haste the worse Speed' and a pictograph signature, is addressed to
the latter (P1. xxii). John Hornby Maw of Guildford, the amateur painter and
collector, and Charles Eastlake, later President of the Royal Academy, are other
recipients, while a few copies and annotations in the hand of Ruskin and a letter
to Turner from Francis Chantrey, the sculptor, are also included in the collection.
PAMELA J. WILLETTS
Turner's eccentric punctuation has not been retained in its entirety.

PRIORISTA OF ANGELO AND FRANCESCO GADDI

S GE M' and 'a real jewel for an antiquarian' are the affectionate
by Seymour Kirkup to describe the Gaddi Priorista which has
been acquired by the Department of Manuscripts by means of t
water Fund (Egerton 3764).x But not only antiquarians will del
acquisition, which comprises lists of all the priors or magistrates of Flo
1282 to I532 and a full marginal commentary containing original ma
history of Florence.
The Florentine republic was governed by a Signoria of eight P
Gonfaloniere di Giustizia with the help of their two 'Colleges' and ot
The Signoria was normally elected by lot for a period of two mon
moments of political crisis power could be given by the citizens to
ordinary council or balsa and election made by hand instead of by lo
onwards, the period in which the Medici were beginning to establ
predominance in Florence, such election a mano became gradually
institution and BalZe were frequently appointed, and it is in this pe
entries in the Gaddi Priorista are especially interesting; for, as well
the priors of Florence, the Priorista also contains lists of members o
citizens, accoppiatori (who were responsible for making the election
noria) and other officials, all of whom are of particular significance
62

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XXII. J. M. W. TURNER: AUTOGRAPH NOTE TO CLARA WHEELER, 19 MARCH 1829.

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