Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/335

 It is interesting to note that Turner's work for the engravers was a dominating feature in his career, and if McArdell and Valentine Green with their fine array of mezzotint portraits after Sir Joshua Reynolds's canvases immortalised his memory, it is no less true that the crowd of engravers who worked in mezzotint and line, but chiefly in line, have preserved the brilliant landscapes of Turner for posterity. The following salient facts in regard to the dates of his pictures, in comparison with the dates during which he was embarking upon enterprises connected with various series of engraved work after his drawings, and supplying material for publications of most diverse character, shows most conclusively that Turner did not consider it beneath his dignity to apply himself industriously to book illustration.

The following pictures, arranged chronologically from the mass of his work in the National Gallery, indicate the various phases through which he passed: The Shipwreck (1805), The Sun Rising in a Mist (1807), Dido Building Carthage (1815), Bay of Baiæ, Apollo and the Sibyl (1823), Cologne, Evening (1826), Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus (1829), The Loretto Necklace (1829), Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1832), The Fighting Téméraire (1839), The Burial of Sir David Wilkie (1842), The Approach to Venice (1843), and The "Sun of Venice" Going to Sea (1843).

Simultaneously the following series of engraved works after Turner's drawings made their appearance: The "Britannia Depicta" (1807-1810), with the following seven plates (8-1/2 in. by 6-1/2 in.), engraved