Question 1

True or false: Turner was a reclusive teetotaler who avoided all social gatherings.

Accepted Answer

False. He enjoyed drinking, smoking, and socializing at the Royal Academy and taverns, though he was eccentric and secretive about his personal life.

Question 2

True or false: Turner never traveled outside of England and Wales during his lifetime.

Accepted Answer

False. He made extensive trips across Europe, including France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, which inspired many works.

Question 3

True or false: Turner painted 'The Fighting Temeraire' in a single day as a response to a bet.

Accepted Answer

False. He worked on it for months; the bet story was fabricated by a 19th-century journalist for dramatic effect.

Question 4

True or false: Turner was elected a full Royal Academician at just 26 years old.

Accepted Answer

True. He became an Associate at 24 and a full Academician at 26, a record speed in that era.

Question 5

True or false: Turner asked to be buried at sea in a shroud made from one of his own canvases.

Accepted Answer

False. He was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral, not at sea. The story of a canvas shroud is a romantic myth.

Question 6

True or false: Turner had a secret daughter named Evelina with his housekeeper Sarah Danby.

Accepted Answer

True. He maintained a long-term relationship with Sarah Danby, and she bore him two daughters, Evelina and Georgiana, kept hidden.

Question 7

True or false: Turner once had his painting torn from its frame by an angry mob at the Royal Academy.

Accepted Answer

True. In 1803, viewers at the Academy were so outraged by the abstract style of his seascape that they slashed it from its frame.

Question 8

True or false: Turner once lashed himself to a ship’s mast during a storm to study the waves.

Accepted Answer

True. To capture the fury of the sea, he paid sailors to tie him to the mast of a steamer during a blizzard in 1842.

J.M.W. Turner Trivia Questions