J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Perspective lectures c.1809-28 > Uncategorised Perspective Studies > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Watercolour and Ink Tests c.1810-28

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Watercolour and Ink Tests’ c.1810-28
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Watercolour and Ink Tests c.1810–28
D40012
Watercolour and ink and watercolour on white laid paper, 322 x 405 mm
Watermarks ‘Budgen | 1797’ and rampant lion in crowned oval with ‘1797’ below
Inscribed in pencil ‘151’ bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CXCV – 157’ bottom left
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Not mentioned in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory,1 this is the verso of an architectural (D17128 (Turner Bequest CXCV 157). It has been used casually for broad watercolour tests in a variety of greys and browns, and a few ink strokes made with a pen.
1
See A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.594.
Technical notes:
Paper conservator Peter Bower has identified the maker of this sheet and D17126 as Thomas Budgen of Dartford Mill, Kent.1 There is a fold down the centre, and the top and left-hand edges have been trimmed irregularly; the latter is also crumpled and torn, and there are also small holes within the sheet towards the bottom left. There is a reinforcing strip of the same paper along the bottom edge, and there are creases to the patchily darkened surface. A semicircular mark at the left was presumably left by a carelessly placed glass or other vessel.

Matthew Imms
September 2016

1
Bower 1990, p.111 note 6.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Watercolour and Ink Tests c.1810–28 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-watercolour-and-ink-tests-r1183679, accessed 19 May 2024.