3. Sketches in pencil or pen and ink.
The drawings belonging to the two latter classes are in various stages of completion, and would contain, if rightly arranged, a perfect record of the movements of the master’s mind during his whole life. Many of them were so confused among prints and waste-paper that I could neither collect nor catalogue them all in the time I had at my disposal; some portfolios I was not able even to open. The following statement, therefore, omits mention of many, and I believe even of some large water-color drawings. There are in the first class forty-five drawings of the “Rivers of France;” fifty-seven illustrating Rogers’ Poems; twenty-three of the “River Scenery” and “Harbors of England;” four marine vignettes; five middle-sized drawings (including the beautiful “Ivy Bridge”); and a drawing, some three feet by two, finished with exquisite care, of a scene in the Val d’Aosta; total, 135.
It would occupy too much of your space if I were to specify all the various kinds of studies forming the second class. Many are far carried, and are, to my mind, more precious and lovely than any finished drawings; respecting some, there may be question whether Turner regarded them as finished or not. The larger number are light sketches, valuable only to artists, or to those interested in the processes of Turner’s mind and hand. The total number of those which I catalogued as important is 1,757.
The sketches of the third class are usually more elaborate than the colored ones. They consist of studies from nature, or for composition, in firm outline, usually on gray paper, heightened with white. They include, among other subjects, more or less complete, fifty of the original drawings for the Liber Studiorum, and many of the others are of large folio size. The total of those I consider important is 1,322. Now the value of these sketches to the public consists greatly, first, in the preservation of each, as far as possible, in the state in which Turner left it; secondly, in their careful arrangement and explanation; thirdly, in convenience of general access to them. Permit me a word on each of these heads.
Turner was in the habit of using unusual vehicles, and in the colored studies many hues are wrought out by singular means and with singular delicacy—nearly always in textures which the slightest damp (to which the drawings would necessarily be subjected in the process of mounting) would assuredly alter. I have made many experiments in mounting, putting colored drawings, of which I had previously examined the tones, into the hands of the best mounters, and I have never yet had a drawing returned to me without alteration. The vast mass of these sketches, and the comparative slightness of many, would but too probably induce a carelessness and generalization in the treatment they might have to undergo still more fatally detrimental to them.
Secondly, a large number are without names, and so slight that it requires careful examination and somewhat extended acquaintance with Turner’s works to ascertain their intention. The sketches of this class are nearly valueless, till their meaning is deciphered, but of great interest when seen in their proper connection. Thus there are three progressive studies for one vignette in Rogers’ Italy[82] (Hannibal passing the Alps), which I extricated from three several heaps of other mountain sketches with which they had no connection. Thirdly, a large number of the drawings are executed with body color, the bloom of which any friction or handling would in a short period destroy. Their delicate tones of color would be equally destroyed by continuous exposure to the light or to smoke and dust.
Drawings of a valuable character, when thus destructible, are in European museums hardly accessible to the general public. But there is no need for this seclusion. They should be inclosed each in a light wooden frame, under a glass the surface of which a raised mount should prevent them from touching. These frames should slide into cases, containing about twelve drawings each, which would be portable to any part of the room where they were to be seen. I have long kept my own smaller Turner drawings in this manner; fifteen frames going into the depth of about a foot. Men are usually accused of “bad taste,” if they express any conviction of their own ability to execute any given work. But it would perhaps be better if in people’s sayings in general, whether concerning others or themselves, there were less taste, and more truth; and I think it, under the circumstances, my duty to state that I believe none would treat these drawings with more scrupulous care, or arrange them with greater patience, than I should myself; that I am ready to undertake the task, and enter upon it instantly; that I will furnish, in order to prove the working of the system proposed, a hundred of the frames, with their cases, at my own cost; and that within six weeks of the day on which I am permitted to begin work (illness or accident not interfering), I will have the hundred drawings arranged, framed, accompanied by a printed explanatory catalogue, and ready for public inspection. It would then be in the power of the commissioners intrusted with the administration of this portion of the national property to decide if any, or how many more of the sketches, should be exhibited in the same manner, as a large mass of the less interesting ones might be kept as the drawings are at the British Museum, and shown only on special inquiry.
I will only undertake this task on condition of the entire management of the drawings, in every particular, being intrusted to me; but I should ask the advice of Mr. Carpenter, of the British Museum,[83] on all doubtful points, and intrust any necessary operations only to the person who mounts the drawings for the British Museum.
I make this offer[84] in your columns rather than privately, first, because I wish it to be clearly known to the public; and