was at the end of March, the drawing must
have been done before the artist had
reached his twentieth year. The drawing
itself is remarkable for its poetical feeling,
its exquisite finish and unity and breadth
of effect, but when we know that it was
painted by a boy of nineteen we cannot
but marvel at the artist's precocious talent.
It is only now that we are able to speak
with certainty of the date when this draw-
ing was produced and to give it its proper
title. For though the Academy catalogue

THE beautiful early drawing by Turner
of *Marford Mill, Denbighshire*, which is
here reproduced by permission of the
Cotswold Gallery, was exhibited at the
Royal Academy in 1795. Turner was
twenty years of age on April 23rd, 1795,
but as the sending-in day for the exhibition

fess that he was misled by that suggestion
when cataloguing Turner's drawings and
sketches for the Trustees of the National
Gallery, though it is quite clear that he
has only himself to blame for the mistake
he made. Finding a small sketch-book
which contained Turner's drawing from
nature of the mill represented in the Man-
chester Whitworth drawing, he catalogued
it as the "Marford Mill Sketch-book"
(XX. Turner Bequest). As no second
edition of the "Inventory of the Drawings
of the Turner Bequest" is likely to be
called for, I am grateful to the Editor of
THE STUDIO for giving me this oppor-
tunity to confess my error, and to beg my

fellow-students of Turner's work to make
a note that this sketch-book has nothing
to do with Marford Mill. ⚫ ⚫ ⚫

The Manchester Whitworth drawing
certainly does not represent Marford Mill.
The old mill still stands beside the high-
road between Chester and Wrexham, not
far from Rossett station, and though it has
been enlarged, partly rebuilt and altered,
the gable now facing to the front, it bears
too much resemblance to the drawing here
reproduced to admit of any doubt as to its
identification. ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫

Any doubts that might still linger are
dispelled by the presence of a pencil draw-
ing in the Turner Bequest in the margin

for 1795 showed that Turner exhibited
that year a drawing of Marford Mill, all
the efforts of Turner's biographers had
failed to discover the drawing in question.
Records of sales and catalogues of loan
exhibitions were carefully searched, but no
trace of a drawing of Marford Mill could
be found. And then the inquirers got upon
a wrong scent. When Mr. C. F. Bell was
compiling his admirable book on Turner's
exhibited works his attention was drawn

to a water-colour called *The Back of an Old Water Mill*, which the late Mr. J. E. Taylor had generously presented to the Manchester Whitworth Institute, and he put forward the suggestion that perhaps Mr. Taylor's drawing might have been the one exhibited by Turner in 1795. ⚫ ⚫

Mr. Bell's suggested identification of the
exhibited drawing was brought forward
with all due caution, merely as a guess.
The present writer has, however, to con-

"MARFORD MILL"
PENCIL SKETCH BY
J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.
(National Gallery)

A LONG-LOST TURNER WATER-C

'The Studio'

c. 1922

A LONG-LOST TURNER WATER-
COLOUR. BY ALEXANDER J.
FINBERG. ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫

143