Seance   

     The painter J M W Turner (1775-1851) of London, England, was an intense character
     who made a strong impression on people.

     An American journalist William J Stillman met Turner when studying and later,
     working for the "Times" at London.  Stillman had a great regard for Turner's
     paintings and seemed to break through the old man's famous reserve.

     Later, when Stillman was back in the USA, he attended a seance featuring a young
     prodigy of spiritualist circles, a 14 year old `Miss A' who demonstrated all sorts
     of contacts by rappings and spirit writing amongst other displays.  She was said to
     be "the daughter of an ironworks foreman" but the location is not known 

     Stillman believed most mediums were fakes but was surprised to find that `Miss A',
     who either closed her eyes or wore a blindfold - required only mentally projected
     questions, all in complete silence.

     Skeptically Stillman projected a question "Has my dead cousin Harvey met with
     someone called Turner?" (because he'd heard from England that Turner was recently
     deceased). He got a nod, and, after thinking the question "What is he doing?" saw
     `Miss A' miming actions of painting a picture.

     `Miss A' suddenly said "I don't like this" sitting upright and tense in a peculiar
     attitude -
     
     "with a most extraordinary personation of the old painter ... It was as if the ghost
     of Turner, as I had seen him at Griffith's, sat in the chair, and it made my flesh
     creep to the very tips of my fingers, as if a spirit sat before me"

     The young medium shook her head strongly as Stillman projected questions at the
     Turner `presence' but then arose and, taking down a framed drawing from the wall,
     went through a mime of a painting process, stretching of paper over a board,
     sharpening pencils, tracing outlines, choosing brushes and boldly `washing in the
     drawing'
 
     Next she took (invisible) brush and handkerchief to begin rubbing, or smudging the
     central area 'to rub out the lights'

     Stillman thought "I wonder if Turner actually worked this way?" to which `Miss A'
     nodded an affirmative.

     Another thought crossed Stillman's mind - "Turner's `Llanthony Abbey' - with its
     central passage of sunlight and shadow - was it perhaps done that way?"

     Again `Miss A' nodded vigorously

     Stillman wrote that he left the seance - "convinced he had been humbugged, although
     he was sure the girl knew nothing of drawing or Turner"

                                       ------------

     Some months later, again in England, he met with Ruskin and mentioned the story of
     the seance.

     Ruskin said that the "contrariness" manifested by the medium was typical of Turner,
     then he fetched down the `Llanthony Abbey' piece.

     Stillman later wrote - "We scrutinised it closely and and both recognized beyond
     dispute that the drawing had been executed in the way that `Miss A' indicated.


     ---------------------------------------------------------------
     p414-415 of "Standing in the Sun - a Life of J M W Turner" 
     by Anthony Bailey - Pimlico, London 1998 ISBN 0-7126-6604-4
     ---------------------------------------------------------------

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