Joseph Mallord William Turner List of Pictures, Prices and Clients (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1800-7
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 66 Verso:
List of Pictures, Prices and Clients (Inscriptions by Turner) circa 1800–7
D05242
Turner Bequest LXXXIV 67a
Turner Bequest LXXXIV 67a
Inscribed by Turner (see main catalogue entry) in pencil and pen and ink on white wove paper, 119 x 73 mm
Stamped in black ‘LXXXIV 67a’ bottom right, running vertically
Stamped in black ‘LXXXIV 67a’ bottom right, running vertically
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.224, LXXXIV 67a, as ‘Pictures’.
1947
R.B. Beckett, ‘“Kilgarran Castle”: A Link between Turner and Wilson’, The Connoisseur, no.103, September 1947, pp.10–15.
1980
Andrew Wilton, Turner and the Sublime, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto 1980, pp.136–9.
1984
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.30, 44, 108–9.
2001
Ian Warrell, ‘Bonneville’ in Evelyn Joll, Martin Butlin and Luke Herrmann eds., The Oxford Companion to J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 2001, p.28.
The page is inscribed by Turner, mainly in pencil but with one name, Mr Parker, in ink, as follows:
Pictures
Two. 20 Mr. Hancock
Conway. 70 Mr. Leader x
Kilgarron Castle 30 Gns all gns. . . .
With Duke of Bridgewater
Historical 300 Ld. Carysford.
Whole Length
Sea Piece Mr Bannister.
Small do 10 Mr Tomkinson x
Bowland
Lancashire 40 Mr. Parker.
Mt. Blanc Mr. Green
3 F by 4
Two. 20 Mr. Hancock
Conway. 70 Mr. Leader x
Kilgarron Castle 30 Gns all gns. . . .
With Duke of Bridgewater
Historical 300 Ld. Carysford.
Whole Length
Sea Piece Mr Bannister.
Small do 10 Mr Tomkinson x
Bowland
Lancashire 40 Mr. Parker.
Mt. Blanc Mr. Green
3 F by 4
See the note to folio 65 verso (D05240) for the lists of pictures in this sketchbook. Here, as in the previous list, not all works or patrons can be identified. Of the first two pictures and of Mr Hancock, nothing is known. The Conway is the Conway Castle of circa 1803 (Trustees of the Grosvenor Estate),1 acquired by William Leader. ‘Kilgarron Castle’ is presumably Kilgarran Castle on the Twyvey, Hazy Sunrise Previous to a Sultry Day, Royal Academy 1799 (The National Trust).2 The price, thirty guineas, is the same that Turner charged ‘a drawing master’ of Oxford (thought to be William Delamotte) for Kilgarran.3 Delamotte lived in Oxford until 1803 and the sale of the picture probably coincided with Turner’s visit to the city late in 1802 or some time the following year.4 Subsequently, and before 1808, the picture was bought by Sir John Leicester. Turner’s notes here indicate that the Duke of Bridgewater had also had it on approval, presumably prior to its purchase by Delamotte; the Duke’s death on 8 March 1803 could have resulted in its being returned to Turner. If on the other hand Turner is referring to one of the other known versions of the subject, for example that in the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester,5 the timing of the Duke’s death undermines Beckett’s belief that these date from 1804.
As first suggested by Andrew Wilton, the historical subject for ‘Ld. Carysford’ (John Joshua Proby, 1st Earl of Carysfort) may be The Deluge (Tate N00493)6 as J.P. Quilley’s mezzotint of the picture was dedicated to him posthumously. Turner was at work on the picture during 1804 and probably exhibited it at his own gallery in 1805. If originally intended for Carysfort, it was not acquired by him. The actor Jack Bannister did buy the sea piece listed next, Seascape with a Squall Coming Up, dated by Butlin and Joll to 1803–4 partly on the evidence of the notes in this sketchbook (Malden Public Library, Malden, Massachusetts).7 Neither the further sea piece nor the client, Mr Tomkinson, is known.
The view for ‘Mr Parker’ must have depicted the Forest of Bowland in which Browsholme Hall, the estate of Thomas Lister Parker, is located. Turner had drawn Browsholme in about 1798–9 (private collection)8 and Parker bought Turner’s Sheerness and the Isle of Sheppey, with the Junction of the Thames and the Medway from the Nore (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC)9 probably in 1807. Turner was also at Whitewell near Browsholme in 180910 but probably too late to generate the work listed here. The final item, a Mont Blanc for Mr Green (John Green of Blackheath), is presumably the same as already listed on folio 65 verso, now generally identified as Bonneville, Savoy with Mont Blanc exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1803 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut).11
David Blayney Brown
November 2004
Undated letter from Brian Broughton, Oxford, to Mrs Langford Brooke, 12 Albemarle Street; cited ibid., p.8.
See the Rhine, Strassburg and Oxford sketchbook (Tate D04736–D04796, D40791–D40794; Turner Bequest LXXVII).
How to cite
David Blayney Brown, ‘List of Pictures, Prices and Clients (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1800–7 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2004, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www