Whereas 2025 undoubtedly marks the 250th anniversary of the start of JMW Turner, the precise date on which the artist was born continues to be a matter of some debate.
Just lately, on the Nationwide Maritime Museum in Greenwich, the chair of the Turner Society and the museum’s curator emeritus, Pieter van der Merwe, defined that though Turner—notoriously shifty about his origins and actions—claimed his start was on 23 April, together with William Shakespeare, there was no document of this. The one sure date was his baptism on 14 Might 1775 at St Paul’s Church Covent Backyard, simply across the nook from his birthplace at 21 Maiden Lane.
Nevertheless, even that is sophisticated. Early engravings truly present the constructing on the opposite aspect of the slender avenue.
The actual web site is now occupied by the Porterhouse pub, which has joined Turner’s birthday celebrations with gusto, commissioning a ten foot sq. mural map of Turner’s London from Adam Dant, which the artist unveiled as van der Merwe hung a splendid wreath on the wall.
The pub has additionally created a restricted version Mr Turner’s Porter—the good man fortified his genius on portions of porter and cheese—and readers can declare a free pattern by following a strolling path model of Dant’s map and importing, tagging and producing photographic proof on the bar. Birthday or not, we’ll drink to that.
