342

REFUSING TO SELL.

Relating to the price of this Koh-i-noor of a picture, a correspondent writes:

"Upon going into the Gallery soon after it opened, I was, as a purchaser of modern works at that time, so struck with the poetry and beauty of this most charming picture, that I instantly went off to Queen Anne-street, was favoured with a long and interesting interview with the artist; and although he stated that the Téméraire was his '200 guineas' size' only, I urged him again and again to accept my cheque for three hundred; and at length begged of him only to 'put a price upon it.' I would have given him five hundred guineas rather than have left it; for I had set my heart upon the gem! But although he offered to take a commission of the same size at 200 guineas, stating that 'I might choose my own subject' likewise, I could not possibly induce him either to accept my offer, or to put any price upon the Téméraire.”

There was a story current that this great picture could have been bought at the Academy for 150l., and yet could obtain no purchaser. This is incorrect, as the above letter shows.

Some years after the Exhibition, Mr. Leslie tried to buy it for Mr. James Lenox, of New York; but Turner would not part with it. In 1831 it had already been mentally placed by him

tures he would leave to the nation.

among the pic

Sacks of gold would not have shaken him on this point.

In one of the codicils to his will that after his death was set aside, Turner left each of his executors a picture. They were to choose for themselves (I believe), according to seniority; but the Téméraire

was specially excepted from the pictures that they might choose.

An early writer on Turner says:

"It has often been asked where, when, and how Turner acquired such knowledge of the sea and of ships? and the question may be answered by stating that in his travels he always mingled with humble and practical men; for whether journeying by sea or land, he never parted with a penny without look. ing at it twice, and was in the habit of travelling by the most economical conveyance, as well as putting up at the most cheap houses; and a good deal of his knowledge of seamanship was picked up during his trips to the North, to which he always went by a collier. Once he spent a whole summer in drifting about the Thames, for he was fond of the water; and at the time of his death, Mr. Booth's' boat was moored off Battersea Bridge. Lord Egremont used to assert that Turner had a yacht; but we cannot ascertain this to be the case."

"In the year 1839," says Mr. Lupton, "J. M. W. Turner presented the public with the sight of that highly-esteemed picture, the Téméraire being towed to her last Berth,' the beauty and splendour of which were perhaps somewhat heightened by an occurrence which not unfrequently happens to pictures that are placed in juxtaposition during the arranging or hanging of the pictures for public exhibition.

เ

"The picture of the Téméraire' was placed satisfactorily to Mr. Turner, and immediately over it was a picture by Geddes, A.R.A.-'A Lady and Children.' Geddes was delighted with the splendour

and brilliancy of Turner's picture; but at the same time saw at a glance that its splendour and brilliancy would entirely attract the spectator's attention from his own picture above, and that he must do something to make his picture more attractive, and share in the vividness or brilliancy of colour with Turner's picture beneath. So he resolved to repaint the floor of his picture, which was a plain, quiet colour, and make it more attractive to the spectator's eye; accordingly he resolved to paint in a showy Turkey carpet. To accomplish this, he first painted the whole ground of his picture with a flat, bright tint of vermilion, as a groundwork for the pattern of the carpet to be painted, and then returned to an adjoining room to complete another picture he was painting on before the opening of the Exhibition. Turner was also in an adjoining room, touching upon or varnishing another of his pictures; after awhile, he returned to look at his 'Téméraire,' when, in an instant, his eyes were attracted up to this new mass of bright vermilion of Geddes's picture. He was overheard to exclaim, 'Oh, oh! Mr. Geddes!' and immediately ran for his palette and brushes from an adjoining room where he was painting. Laying hold of his palette knife, he first took a sly look at Mr. Geddes's picture, then at his own: taking his palette knife, charged full of vermilion, he passed it right across his picture; then stepping back, with another sly look at both pictures, and another palette knife charged with orange colour, then another charged with yellow, and so on, until he was satisfied that he had brought his picture up to the necessary brilliancy

to contend with the bright vermilion ground above him in Mr. Geddes's picture.

"Turner, returning the next day to look at his picture, was somewhat surprised to find that the bright vermilion ground of Geddes's picture above his Téméraire,' and which he had taken so much pains to paint down, had been turned into a rich, quiet (comparatively speaking) sober-coloured Turkey carpet."

CHAPTER XXI.

TURNER'S ART LIFE-CONCLUDED.

IN 1840 Turner painted "Bacchus and Ariadne," a variation of the grand old Titian theme. Turner has omitted the sail of the vessel of Theseus, who, having slain the Minotaur, deserts Ariadne at Naxos. There is a city on a height, and a river below.

The same year Turner produced "Venice - the Bridge of Sighs," the celebrated bridge that connects the Doge's palace with the State prison, and which was built in 1589; also "Venice from the Giudecca," a light and sunny picture; and, inaddition, the "New Moon," a seaport at sunset, with sands at low water, and a steamer in the distance.

In 1842 Turner painted "Peace—the Burial of the Body of Sir David Wilkie." This excellent painter had died the June previous off Gibraltar, as he was returning from the East in the Oriental steamer. Wilkie had come to England from Fifeshire in 1805. The old rivalry was now forgotten in regret at his death. In the distance of the picture are the rocketsignals rising from the signal-peak at Gibraltar.

In 1842 Turner also exhibited "War-the Exile and the Rock Limpet;" a picture representing Napo