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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Second Italian Tour 1828-9 > Roman and French Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscriptions by Turner: Accounts and Notes on Chemistry 1828-9

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscriptions by Turner: Accounts and Notes on Chemistry’ 1828-9
Folio 10 Verso:
Inscriptions by Turner: Accounts and Notes on Chemistry 1828–9
D21870
Turner Bequest CCXXXVII 10a
Ink and pencil on white wove paper, 88 x 71 mm
Inscribed in ink and pencil by Turner (see main catalogue entry)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook oriented vertically, Turner filled this page with inscriptions in pen and ink. Finberg transcribed the two sections in his 1909 Inventory of the Bequest,1 an amended version of which is provided here. The upper section is in ink, the lower in pencil:
Ex: Bills. No 61.} 300
604}
5
315 Cs Heath 6 months. Augs 2 –
101 Moon. 6 months. July 8
126 C Heath 6 months. June 10
200 WJ. Burnie. 70 days 1 Augst
124 Bishhops St
100 Ditto 60 Days
842
Alum. Com Zp [two small symbols]
Zinc. Suphr q[?tr] x[?&h]
P[?a]l. Matte X
The upper section likely refers to figures connected to the engraving and publishing industry. ‘Cs Heath’ is presumably Charles Heath, a prosperous landscape and figure engraver patronised by King George III, who promoted fashionable illustrated ‘annuals’ such as the Keepsake, to which Turner contributed designs between 1828 and 1837, the later ‘Rivers of France’ volumes (1832–4), and the ongoing Picturesque View in England and Wales plates from Turner’s designs between 1827 and 18382 (studies and designs for all three projects being covered elsewhere in the present catalogue). ‘Moon’ is probably Sir Francis Graham Moon, 1st Baronet, a printseller and publisher who later became Lord Mayor of London. He was also a partner in Moon, Boys and Graves, who published their first print after Turner in 1828 and took over the England and Wales series in 1831.3
William and James Burnie of 124 Bishopsgate, in the City of London, were listed among ‘East-India Houses of Agency’ in 1824,4 and the partnership of these ‘merchants’ was recorded as dissolved in 1838.5 Any connection to Turner remains to be established, as does the general financial significance of these notes, typical of those scattered through his sketchbooks.
John Gage and James Hamilton have referred to the pencil notes here as among ‘recipes’, respectively in relation to painting materials and medicine, without further comment.6

Hannah Kaspar
December 2024

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.726.
2
See Luke Herrmann, ‘Heath, James (1757–1834) and Charles (1785–1848)’ in Evelyn Joll, Martin Butlin and Herrmann (eds.), The Oxford Companion to J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 2001, p.137.
3
See Luke Herrmann, ‘Moon, Boys and Graves’ and ‘Moon, Sir Francis Graham (1796–1871)’ in Joll, Butlin and Herrmann 2001, p.191.
4
The East-India Register, for 1824, London 1824, p.liv.
5
The Champion and Weekly Herald, vol.1, no.37 (new series), 22 January 1838, column 1183.
6
Gage 1969, p.105; Hamilton 1997, p.340.

How to cite

Hannah Kaspar, ‘Inscriptions by Turner: Accounts and Notes on Chemistry 1828–9’, catalogue entry, December 2024, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2025, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/inscriptions-by-turner-accounts-and-notes-on-chemistry-r1210428, accessed 17 April 2025.