A blacksmith working in his forge, and discussing money with two customers, while a boy shoes a horse. Engraving by C.W. Sharpe after J.M.W. Turner.

"The Turner Gallery. -A country blacksmith. Engraved by C. W. Sharpe. Those who know Turner only by what he painted during the last thirty years of his life—indeed, it may be said, during any part of it—would scarcely believe that this picture is the work of his hand, so entirely opposed is it to everything with which his pencil is ordinarily associated. Essentially a landscape-painter, he shows himself here a painter of genre, in a style too which will bear comparison with the works of some of the old Flemish artists. It was painted in 1807, and the circumstances that led him to depart, in this instance, and in another also, to which reference will presently be made, from his ordinary practice, are generally understood to have been these. In the preceding year Wilkie arrived in London, from Edinburgh, with his 'Village politicians,' which proved so popular with the public, and even by many artists and connoisseurs was received with so much approbation, that Turner's emulation was excited, and he determined to show the world that a subject of the same class was not beyond his powers. The result was the picture of 'A country blacksmith disputing with a butcher upon the price of iron, and the charge made for shoeing his pony,' —the long and somewhat quaint title given by Turner to the work here engraved. Allan Cunningham, in his biographical sketch of Wilkie, tells a story about this picture, the truth of which his son, Peter Cunningham, in his 'Turner and his works,' undertakes to prove. In the same year that 'The forge,' as Cunningham calls it, was exhibited, Turner sent also to the Academy another work, 'The sun rising through vapour; ' between these was hung Wilkie's 'Blind fiddler;' and it is said that, on what is well-known among artists as the "varnishing day,"—a day when the members of the Academy are allowed the privilege of retouching their works,—Turner reddened his sun, and blew the bellows of his art on his 'Blacksmith's forge, 'to put the Scotchman's nose out of joint, who had gained so much reputation by his 'Village politicians.' Mr. Wornum, the Keeper of the National Gallery, has taken some pains to ascertain the truth of this story, and asserts his entire disbelief of it, from the position in which, according to the catalogue of the Academy for 1807, the pictures hung : the 'Blind fiddler' may have been near the 'Forge,' but certainly not between it and the other by Turner, which, from its number in the catalogue, must have been at some little distance. Still stronger evidence is to be found on examining Turner's pictures; for the fire of the forge is scarcely visible, and the sun in the other is not seen at all, but is only indicated by a spot of bright yellowish colour. It is just possible,—though there is nothing in his whole history to justify a supposition of such unprofessional meanness and jealousy, but everything to contradict it,—that Turner may have retouched these parts of both pictures after they left the exhibition room. Whatever the motive may have been which induced him to paint this picture, whether a mere fancy, or to show, as is alleged, that he too could produce, no less than Wilkie, a group of 'Village politicians,' the work affords indisputable proof that he could grapple successfully with any subject to which he chose to apply the powers of his mind and the skill of his pencil. The composition truthfully bears out the title given to it by the painter, so far as relates to a conversation of some kind going on between those in the smithery, for even the man engaged in shoeing the pony seems for a moment to have his attention absorbed by it; the subject of the discussion is, however, not quite so apparent, for, it might be one of politics, or the price of butcher's meat, or of the new shoes on the animal's feet. But the whole scene is wonderfully life-like in its general character, while all the details are made out, even to the most diminutive object, with the elaboration and finish that we find in the works of Gerard Douw, Teniers, and other Dutch masters. The light and shade, moreover, are managed with extraordinary skill and effect. The other picture of the same class, to which allusion has been made, is the 'Harvest home,' an unfinished sketch, also in the National Gallery."--The art journal, loc. cit.