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 L80,000 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.