Signature Mystery - Unsolved --- Day 4/154

Walk: To and from car (it's Thursday, driving day)
Distance: a few blocks and home yoga practice

A friend wrote about whether Turner signed his works and another mystery about this deeply elusive and secretive artist began. This time with no solution.

  Clearly, this is too god to be true - and wrong.

 But, what about this?

   Or this 'T' carefully buried under the paint and varnish?

There are those who believe that the wildly prolific Turner signed every one of his works - including sketches which he made sometimes at the rate of 20-30 in a single day.  Basically he never stopped making art.  There are others who go further and say all his signatures were in cryptic form, like the buried 'T' above. Present day Turner authenticators probably turn to an array of forensic methods.

Ciwt speculates that, in fact, Turner left many, many of his works completely unsigned. The small sketches because he would have been more interested in simply recording (and who signs every page of their diary?).  He may have left the larger, completed paintings unsigned as a way to remain elusive, not entirely known to anyone.  Secrecy was part of his nature.  He avoided entangling friendships, rejected any matrimonial involvement, frequently used assumed names, and sometimes concealed where he was living.

Mystery Unsolved.

Signed, Ciwt