JMW Turner’s mother died when the artist, then 29, was busy preparing for and opening his first public exhibition, and her “mental illness”, referred to in your review of the BBC Two documentary Turner: The Secret Sketchbooks (19 November), should be described as “purported”.
We only have the testimony provided by the actions of her husband and son, who sent her to a lunatic asylum designed for paupers, when they were in fact not poor and could have accommodated her in a better environment with better care, and thereby lengthened her life.
