Water-colour Sketches
'View of Windsor Castle.' No. XXXIII. (H).
'Durham Cathedral.' No. XXXVI. (G).
'Derwentwater.' No. XXXVI. (H).
'Head of Derwentwater.' No. XXXVI. (I).
'Langdale Pikes.' No. XXXVI. (J).
'Coniston Old Man.' No. XXXVI. (L).
'Coniston Old Man.' No. XXXVI. (U).
'Rood Screen of a Church, seen from north Transept.' No. L. (A).
'Study for a Picture of Norham Castle' (1). No. L. (B).
'Study for a Picture of Norham Castle' (2). No. L. (C).
'Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.' No. L. (G).
'Donkeys beside a Mine Shaft.' No. LX. (I).
'A Castle seen through Trees.' No. LXIV. (L).
'Windsor Park. The Horses by Sawrey Gilpin, R.A.' No.
LXX. (G).
'St. Agatha's Abbey.' (?) No. LXX. (H).
'The Ford.' No. LXX. (K).
'Study for Historical Subject.' No. LXX. (N).
'Dolbadern Castle.' No. LXX. (O).
'Fonthill Abbey.' No. LXX. (P).
'A Welsh Mountain Subject.' No. LXX. (Q),
'Stormy Sunset in Wales.' No. LXX. (U).
'Falls of Schaffhausen from below.' No. LXXIX. (B),
'Falls of Schaffhausen and Castle.' No. LXXIX. (C).
'Schaffhausen from below the Falls.' No. LXXIX. (E).
'The Source of the Arveron' (1). No. LXXIX. (F).
'The Source of the Arveron' (2). No. LXXIX. (G).
'The Source of the Arveron' (3). No. LXXIX. (L).
'A Road among Mountains.' No. LXXIX (H).
'A Valley Between Mountains.' No. LXXIX. (K).
'Gordale Scar.' No. CLIV. (O).
'Great End, Scawfell Pikes.' No. CLIV. (M).
'Barden Towers.' No. CLIV. (L).
'Head of Derwentwater.' No. CLIV. (N).
'Scarborough.' No. CXCVI. (C).
'An Italian Scene.' No. CXCVI. (X).
'Ruins of an Amphitheatre.' No. CXCVI. (Z).
'Stormy Evening on Coast.' No. CCLXIII. (334).
'A Sea Piece, Evening.' No. CCLXII. (333).
'Carnarvon Castle.' No. LXX. (M).
'Scene in the Great St. Bernard Pass (?).' No. LXXX. (D).
The Turnerian surprises were not yet finished. They culminated in the announcement that one of the desires expressed by the painter in his will, namely, that his pictures should be kept together in a building to be called the 'Turner Gallery,' was at last about to be fulfilled through the generosity of Mr. J. J. Duveen, afterwards Sir Joseph Duveen, who offered to add a new wing, comprising five rooms, with other rooms below, to the National Gallery of British Art, for the exhibition of the Turner Bequest. It was stated that the whole of the Turner collection would be removed to this building, with the exception of such pictures as should be needed sufficiently to exemplify the Master in the representative British School at Trafalgar Square, including the two works which, in fulfilment of the terms of his will, hang side by side with two pictures by Claude Lorrain.
So at last the dream which many of us had been dreaming for years, and working for in writing and speech, was to be realised. It first became, I think, a subject of public interest through a letter that Mr. Lionel Cust wrote to the editor of the Times in July 1906, at a time when the Government authorities contemplated utilising the vacant land at the back of the Tate Gallery for a new Stationery Office. The support given to Mr. Cust's proposals caused the abandonment of this scheme, and the Director of the National Gallery was informed by the First Commissioner of Works that if a certain sum of money could be provided from private sources to erect a Turner Gallery, the Government would be prepared to find the remainder. Thanks to the efforts of Sir Hugh Gilzean Reid, this sum was within a near distance of being secured, when further need for it was removed by the generous action of Mr. Duveen, who offered to erect a Turner Gallery at his own cost.
In 1907 the nation became indebted to Mr. C. Mallord Turner for a number of Turner relics. This collection, lent for a period of ten years, includes two cases of models of ships and a cabinet of glass jars of colour from the artist's house; an oil-colour box with palette and brushes; a travelling pocket-book holding cakes of water-colour; several drawings, and a letter from Turner to his father; the catalogue of pictures and drawings on exhibition at his gallery in 1809; one of the original copper plates for the Liber Studiorum, etched and mezzotinted by himself; eight volumes from his library, including guide and handbooks, with annotations and sketches by Turner; and a volume of MS. poems, and specimen MSS. of the lectures given by him at the Royal Academy as Professor of Perspective. Another donation, from Mr. Sidney Cockerell, was a portrait of Turner by Charles Turner, with an inscription on the back, stating that the drawing was made about two months before the death of the sitter, in 1851. It is a profile to right, head and shoulders, and the official description of the garments he wears is—'tall hat, white collar, large tie with pin and top-coat.'
In the months of May and June, 1910, the Turner Room at the National Gallery, the well-known, well-loved room was dismantled, and in June, the Turner Room at the Tate Gallery was closed, and the 'unfinished' oils were carried through the doorway of the new Turner wing, now ready for hanging. A screen was placed before the entrance, but the visitor looking above the screen had a glimpse of the brilliant red wall-hangings, and he wondered, somewhat anxiously, how the old dark Turners would look in their new and gorgeous environment.
The very early pictures have not been admitted to the splendour. They hang outside the annexe, on the dividing wall separating Room V. from the Turner Gallery, four on one side of the doorway, four on the other, examples of the Turner who had not begun to find his way. Some of the titles suggest light and air, but the execution is heavy and fumbling, and they are blackened by time. At the extreme left is the little 'Carnarvon Castle' of the year 1800; above is a trifle called 'View of a Town,' of 1798. In the middle of the group is the huge 'Morning on the Coniston Fells, Lancashire,' exhibited in 1798, muddled, inconsequent, almost a libel on the fines from Paradise Lost that accompanied it—
'Ye mists and exhalations that now arise,
From hill or streaming lake, dusky or grey,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the world's great Author rise.'