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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Berwick Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Jedburgh Abbey from the West; and Inscriptions by Turner 1831

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  • Inside front cover of sketchbook
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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Jedburgh Abbey from the West; and Inscriptions by Turner’ 1831 (Inside front cover of sketchbook)
Inside front cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Front Cover:
Jedburgh Abbey from the West; and Inscriptions by Turner 1831
D41232
Pencil on white wove paper, 96 x 59 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner at the top of the page
Inscribed at the left of the page running vertically, ‘3 [?]with [?]India Proofs of | mine’
Inscribed in black ink by H.S. Trimmer ‘no 217.. | 55 sketches in pencil | [signed] H.S. Trimmer’ top right descending vertically
Signed in brown ink by Charles Turner ‘C Turner’ beneath Trimmer’s signature descending vertically
Signed in pencil by John Prescott Knight ‘JPK’ beneath Charles Turner’s signature descending vertically
Signed in pencil by Charles Lock Eastlake ‘C.L.E.’ beneath Knight’s signature descending vertically
Blindstamped with the Turner Bequest stamp centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
At the top of the page there is a pencil inscription by Turner:
         15 
          3 
          4 
          5 
         13 
Railway   6 6 
         Jedburgh 
With the sketchbook turned to the right is a sketch that David Wallace-Hadrill recognised as Jedburgh Abbey.1 This is the west end of the abbey where there is a rose window in the gable and an ornate arched entrance. The sketch continues onto folio 1 (D25644) where the door is shown along with several other architectural details. In his attempt to make the sketch fit into the available space on the page Turner has made the abbey appear more squat than it actually is. Above the sketch to the left is a small study of part of two arches, probably from the clerestory level of the north or south sides of the abbey.
There are further sketches of Jedburgh Abbey on folios 10 verso and 11 verso and 19 (D25660, D25662), and perhaps further sketches on folios 13, 23 verso and 48 verso (D25664, D25683, D25731), as well as in the Abbotsford sketchbook (Tate D26039; Turner Bequest CCLXVII 65 a).

Thomas Ardill
September 2009

1
David Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Berwick CCLXV checklist’, [circa 1992], Tate catalogue files.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Jedburgh Abbey from the West; and Inscriptions by Turner 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-jedburgh-abbey-from-the-west-and-inscriptions-by-turner-r1134006, accessed 01 March 2025.