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

At the outer edge, with the page turned vertically, are the following notes, largely in ink:

A first ink number at the start of line four, apparently ending ‘85’, has been crossed out and smudged for good measure. There are numerous working alterations in pencil to the original list: largely illegible words inserted after the numbers in lines two and three; another illegible word at the start of line five; and crossings-out of the numbers in the next two lines. After a slight gap, the last line is all in pencil and seems to be a variation on the penultimate.

The list presumably records Bank of England notes, with their serial numbers, dates of issue in the spring and summer of ‘[18]25’, and denomination in pounds. Such lists in other sketchbooks include added place names, presumably indicating where the notes were broken or spent; compare for example Tate D40905–D40906 at one end of 1811’s Devonshire Coast, No.1 (Turner Bequest CXXIII).1 It is unclear whether the present list relates directly to the tour embodied in this book and its companion, the Holland sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CCXIV); the all but illegible pencil notes here might again signify place names, or individuals.

At right-angles to Turner’s notes, along the top edge as foliated, is the customary endorsement by the Executors of the Turner Bequest, Henry Scott Trimmer, John Prescott Knight and Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, in ink ‘N^o 277– | 69 leaves with pencil sketches | H.S Trimmer’ and in pencil ‘C.L.E.’ and ‘JPK’.

Technical notes:

There is a brownish stain extending approximately a third of the way up the page for the bottom edge, where the roughly trimmed overlap from the sketchbook’s leather pencil holder is affixed to the board under this paste-down. The more localised stain towards the gutter at the top right is from the leather spine of this quarter-bound book.