page 5 of 11

"His first oil picture"
Page 26 lines 10, 11 & 12

Miller set out the timing of the first oil picture.

He wrote, "It was also at this time..." and 'this time' can be construed in two different ways:

within the meaning of the 'big thought' and referring back to the time that 'had arrived', or
coincident with the just previously mentioned departure during the summer of 1793.

Of these, only the first is tenable for 'View of Rochester' to be the first oil picture. (It cannot be as late as the second construal because the 'first' oil must have been painted before Turner's 'first exhibited' oil in the 1793 Royal Academy exhibition.)