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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Margate, London and Surrey c.1829-45 > Kent Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: Financial Notes c.1830

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Financial Notes’ c.1830
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Recto:
Inscription by Turner: Financial Notes c.1830
D35758
Turner Bequest CCCLXIII 1
Pencil on white wove paper, 76 x 98 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil with financial notes (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘1’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXIII – 1’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page is taken up with the following notes:
7 as 6– – 25 [?pts] & 10 [?pts]
Commissions.
to be settled for by Bills at
6 months from Jan 1
& July 1 from the end of
each ½ year – 42. 3. 10
The ‘25’ and ‘10’ are each underlined twice for extra emphasis, but the words or letters following each are uncertain, and Finberg’s readings ‘pts’1 are retained for want of clearer ones. The figures and dates are typical of the detailed and slightly confused financial notes in many of Turner’s sketchbooks, and their meaning is as yet unknown, but they seem to relate to property (see also folio 16 recto; D35787) or a debt.2 The final figure is presumably 42 pounds, 3 shillings and tenpence. There are what seem to be related working figures inside the front cover opposite (D41226).

Matthew Imms
September 2016

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.1176.
2
See N.R.D. Powell, ‘Finance and Property’, in Evelyn Joll, Martin Butlin and Luke Herrmann (eds.), The Oxford Companion to J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 2001, pp.107–8.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Financial Notes c.1830 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-inscription-by-turner-financial-notes-r1183721, accessed 20 May 2024.