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

This page is not mentioned in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Turner Bequest.1 There appear to be two sketches side by side at the centre of the page. They are drawn with a rather heavy and unsteady line, perhaps while travelling, but their orientation is unclear, and whether these forms, which each with a degree of symmetry, are landscapes, architectural elements, diagrams or doodles is a moot point. There is also what seems to be a small architectural elevation towards the bottom left.

Made with the page turned vertically, and presumably after the two central sketches, there are three views of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, all showing the castle and St Helen’s Church from the west, although later developments make the precise viewpoints difficult to establish. There are further views, including at least one of Ashby, continuing in bands ‘below’ on folio 92 verso opposite (D22150; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 90a). For other views of the castle and church, see under folio 21 verso (D22012; CCXXXVIII 21). As Eric Shanes has noted, ‘the large number of those studies suggests that the painter went to great lengths to find a view of the scene that sparked his imagination’.2 There is a small sketch in the contemporary Birmingham and Coventry sketchbook which appears to show a similar distant prospect (Tate D22355; Turner Bequest CCXL 19).

The most prominent inscription is that of Turner’s executors, with the book’s original schedule number endorsed by Charles Turner, Charles Lock Eastlake and John Prescott Knight, at the top right in ink: ‘N^o 331 Contains 87 leaves | Pencil sketches, most on both sides | C Turner’, and initialled in pencil ‘C.L.E.’ and ‘JPK’.