Sir: You will oblige me by correcting the misstatement in your columns of the 22d,[111] that “only copies of the copies” of Turner exhibited at 148 New Bond Street, are for sale. The drawings offered for sale by the company will, of course, be always made by Mr. Ward from the originals, just as much as those now exhibited as specimens.
You observe in the course of your article that “surely such attempts could not gratify any one who had a true insight for Mr. Turner’s works?” But the reason that the drawings now at 148 New Bond Street are not for sale is that they do gratify me, and are among my extremely valued possessions; and if among the art critics on your staff there be, indeed, any one whose “insight for Mr. Turner’s work” you suppose to be greater than mine, I shall have much pleasure in receiving any instructions with which he may favor me, at the National Gallery, on the points either in which Mr. Ward’s work may be improved, or on those in which Turner is so superior to Titian and Correggio, that while the public maintain, in Italy, a nation of copyists of these second-rate masters, they are not justified in hoping any success whatever in representing the work of the Londoner, whom, while he was alive, I was always called mad for praising.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
John Ruskin.
Peterborough, April 23.
[From “The Times,” January 24, 1871.]
“TURNERS,” FALSE AND TRUE.
To the Editor of “The Times.”
Sir: I have refused until now to express any opinion respecting the picture No. 40[112] in the Exhibition of the Old Masters, feeling extreme reluctance to say anything which its kind owner, to whom the Exhibition owes so much, might deem discourteous.
But I did not suppose it was possible any doubt could long exist among artists as to the character of the work in question; and, as I find its authenticity still in some quarters maintained, I think no other course is open to me than to state that the picture is not by Turner, nor even by an imitator of Turner acquainted with the essential qualities of the master.
I am able to assert this on internal evidence only. I never saw the picture before, nor do I know anything of the channels through which it came into the possession of its present proprietor.
No. 235 is, on the contrary, one of the most consummate and majestic works that ever came from the artist’s hand, and it is one of the very few now remaining which have not been injured by subsequent treatment.