Meanwhile, for that winter (1856-7) a preliminary exhibition was held of Turner's oil-paintings, with a few water-colours, at Marlborough House, then the headquarters of the Department of Science and Art, soon afterwards removed to South Kensington. Ruskin wrote a catalogue, with analysis of Turner's periods of development and characteristics; which made the collection intelligible and interesting to curious sight-seers. They showed their appreciation by taking up five editions in rapid succession.
Just before lecturing at Manchester, he wrote again on the subject to _The Times_; and in September his friend R.N. Wornum, Director of the National Gallery in succession to Eastlake and Uwins, wrote--as we saw--that he might arrange the sketches as he pleased. He returned from Scotland, and set to work on October 7th.
It was strange employment for a man of his powers; almost as removed from the Epicurean Olympus of "cultured ease" popularly assigned to him, as night-school teaching and lecturing to workmen. But, beside that it was the carrying out of Turner's wishes, he always had a certain love for experimenting in manual toil; and this was work in which his extreme neatness and deftness of hand was needed, no less than his knowledge and judgment. During the winter for full six months, he and his two assistants worked, all day and every day, among the masses of precious rubbish that had been removed from Queen Anne Street to the National Gallery.
Mr. J.J. Ruskin wrote, on February 19 and 21, 1852:
"I have just been through Turner's house with Griffith. His labour is more astonishing than his genius. There are £80,000 of oil pictures done and undone--Boxes half as big as your Study Table, filled with Drawings and Sketches. There are Copies of Liber Studiorum to fill all your Drawers and more, and House Walls of proof plates in Reams--they may go at 1/-each....
"Nothing since Pompeii so impressed me as the interior of Turner's house; the accumulated dust of 40 years partially cleared off; Daylight for the first time admitted by opening a window on the finest productions of art buried for 40 years. The Drawing Room has, it is reckoned, £25,000 worth of proofs, and sketches, and Drawings, and Prints. It is amusing to hear Dealers saying there can be no Liber Studiorums--when I saw neatly packed and well labelled as many Bundles of Liber Studiorum as would fill your entire Bookcase, and England and Wales proofs in packed and labelled Bundles like Reams of paper, as I told you, piled nearly to Ceiling ...