Ruskin, in his 'Notes on Turner's Drawings exhibited at the Fine Art Society in 1878,' which is printed as the Epilogue to the volume called Notes on Pictures, tells how in the winter of 1841-42 Turner brought back with him from Switzerland a series of sketches, fifteen of which he placed, as was his custom, in the hands of his agent, Griffith of Norwood, so that he might obtain commissions for finished drawings of each.
Ruskin tells us that 'he made anticipatorily four, to manifest what their quality would be, and honestly "show his hand." Four thus exemplary drawings I say he made for specimens, or signs, as it were, for his re-opened shop, namely:—
1. The Pass of Splugen.
2. Mont Righi, seen from Lucerne, in the morning, dark against dawn.
3. Mont Righi, seen from Lucerne at evening, red with the last rays of sunset.
4. Lake Lucerne (The Bay of Uri) from above Brunnen, with exquisite blue and rose mists and 'mackerel' sky on the right.
The whole story, which is told in Ruskin's most simple and charming style, is too long to be repeated here. Nine commissions only could be obtained, making ten with the one given to Griffith as commission. 'Turner growled, but said at last that he would do them,' and among them was a 'Lucerne Town,' which Ruskin, by hard coaxing and petitioning, obtained his father's leave to promise to take if it turned out well. It did.
What a wonderful realisation of a dream of colour is another water-colour of this period, reproduced in these pages—'Spietz on the Lake of Thun, Looking Towards the Bernese Oberland.'
On the last page of the Ruskin Catalogue, which is now called Epilogue, the old man, most eloquent and most sorrowful, writes:—
'The "Constance" and "Coblentz" here with the "Splugen" (1), "Bay of Uri" (4), and "Zurich" (10), of the year 1812, are the most finished and faultless works of his last period; but these of 1843 are the truest and mightiest ... I can't write any more of them just now.'
About this time Munro of Novar offered twenty-five thousand pounds for the whole contents of the Queen Anne Street Gallery. Turner hesitated, but finally refused. Frith, in his Autobiography, tells the story thus:—
'When Munro of Novar went for his final answer, Turner cried, "No! I won't—I can't. I believe I am going to die, and I intend to be buried in those two (pointing to "Carthage" and "The Sun Rising Through Vapour"), so I can't—besides I can't be bothered. Good-evening!"'