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

This sketch appears to show High Rock from the slope north of the road through Cheddar Gorge, lightly indicated in the foreground. There are what seem to be similar views on folios 2 recto, 4 recto and 7 recto (D41375, D41377, D41380). Folios 1 recto–8 recto (D41374–D41381) are all views of Cheddar Gorge, most apparently made in a concentrated area around the Horseshoe Bend.

As discussed in the introduction, the pages of this ‘sketchbook’, which appear to have originally been loose sheets, are not recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, although he subsequently noted the subject as ‘Rocks – “Stone dark in holes (?)”’ in a manuscript list,1 while C.F. Bell described it in his own notes as ‘Rocky gorge, “Stone ... (?)”’.2 Figures corresponding to Finberg’s MS catalogue page numbers, which differ from Bell’s sequence, are inscribed on the verso of each sheet.

Although folios 7 recto and 8 recto (D41380, D41381) are both listed in the ‘Catalogue’ checklist of Turner and the Scientists, where they are described as ‘Devon’ views and as no.106 and fig.121,3 it appears from Tate registrars’ records that only the present page (the one actually reproduced) was exhibited – it would not in any case have been feasible to exhibit two successive rectos at once.

Technical notes:

The sheet is wrinkled, possibly as a result of exposure to damp.

Verso:

Blank, save for inscription by Edwin Fagg in pencil ‘217 | 13’ bottom left, descending vertically (partly trimmed). There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet.