Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/352

 rence, whom he thanked for giving his vote to Charles Turner at the academy election. Here he painted several pictures, including one for Lord Egremont, perhaps ‘Jessica,’ and another ‘View of Orvieto’ (exhibited in 1830, and now in the National Gallery), ‘to stop the gabbling’ of those who said he would not show his work. This he exhibited with a piece of rope railed round the picture instead of a frame. An amusing picture of him at this time is given in a letter from one who met him accidentally in his travels and did not know him. He described Turner as ‘a good-tempered, funny little elderly gentleman,’ continuously sketching at the window, and angry at the conductor for not waiting while he took a sketch of a sunrise at Macerata. ‘“D——the fellow!” he said, “he has no feeling.” He speaks only a few words of Italian, about as much of French, which languages he jumbles together most amusingly.’ This tour was illustrated in the next academy by ‘The Banks of the Loire,’ his first picture of the south of France, and ‘Messieurs les Voyageurs on their Return from Italy (par la diligence) in a Snowdrift upon Mount Tarra on 22 Jan. 1829.’ The same exhibition contained the magnificent ‘Ulysses deriding Polyphemus,’ sometimes regarded as his masterpiece, and still retaining much of its ancient glory. This and ‘The Loretto Necklace’ of the same year are in the National Gallery.

He sustained a very deep loss by the death of his father on 29 Sept. 1829 (not 1830, as stated on his gravestone). Turner is said to have never been the same man afterwards. They were greatly attached to each other, and ever since his ‘dad’ had given up business he had been his son's willing servant, opening his ‘gallery’ in Queen Anne Street, stretching his canvases, working in his garden, and in all ways doing what he could to save his son's money. Turner must also have felt the death of Sir Thomas Lawrence in the following January. He made a sketch of the funeral from memory, which was exhibited the same year, and is now in the National Gallery. In a characteristic letter to Jones he says, ‘Alas! only two short months Sir Thomas followed the coffin of Dawe to the same place. We then were his pall-bearers. Who will do the like for me, or when, God only knows how soon! However, it is something to feel that gifted talent can be acknowledged by the many who yesterday waded up to their knees in snow and muck to see the funeral pomp swelled up by carriages of the great without the persons themselves.’

It was in 1830 that his lovely illustrations to Rogers's ‘Italy’ were published, and next year Turner made his will, of which Samuel Rogers was one of the executors. After leaving a few small legacies to his next-of-kin (including his illegitimate children by his first housekeeper, who since 1801 had been superseded by her niece, Hannah Danby, who lived with him till his death), he devoted the bulk of his money to found an institution for decayed artists, to be called ‘Turner's Gift,’ and left two paintings only to the nation, the ‘Building of Carthage’ and ‘the Sun rising through Mist,’ and these were so left on condition that they should be hung, as they are to this day, next to the great Bouillon Claudes in the National Gallery. The ‘Carthage’ he had never sold; the ‘Sun rising through Mist’ he had bought back at Lord de Tabley's sale in 1827 for 519l. 15s. This year (1831) he visited Scotland again to illustrate ‘Scott's Poems,’ and was nearly lost in the Isle of Skye, near Coruisk. At this time he appears to have been cogitating another country residence, for he was building in the neighbourhood of Rickmansworth. In 1831 and 1832 he exhibited two more of his splendid dreams of Italy, ‘Caligula's Palace and Bridge’ and ‘Childe Harold's Pilgrimage,’ both in the National Gallery, and, in spite of lamentable decay, still beautiful. It is probable that in these years he paid one or more visits to Holland, and he was certainly greatly interested at this time in both Holland and the sea, for from 1831 to 1833 he exhibited many sea-pieces, several of which were Dutch in subject. To about this time belong his visits to France with Leitch Ritchie, who wrote the letterpress to the ‘Rivers of France, or Annual Tour,’ the first volume of which was published in 1833. They travelled, however, little together, their tastes being uncongenial. The original studies for the ‘Rivers of France’ (in body colour, on grey tinted paper) and the drawings made therefrom are among the most characteristic and perfect of his works. Careless, as usual, as to exact topographical accuracy, they express the essential spirit and character of the localities, and the atmospheric effects peculiar to them. Most of them are in the National Gallery. In 1834 a great many other illustrations were published, including the works of Lord Byron, Rogers's poems, Scott's prose and poetical works (for Cadell), and illustrations to Scott for Tilt, besides the second volume of the ‘Annual Tour’ and two illustrations to the ‘Keepsake.’ But his work for the book engravers was drawing to its close. In 1835 appeared Macrone's