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

These energetic studies are executed in black ink applied mostly with a brush, though with some pen; compare the drawings on folio 13 recto (D01484). A mountain is sketched in pencil – possibly part of the same conception, but perhaps a note from nature made in the course of the 1798 tour. Made with the pages turned horizontally, the studies are spread over this and folio 7 recto opposite (D01473). The likelihood is that they represent ideas for an historical composition, probably the subject sketched on folio 69 recto (D01576; Turner Bequest XL 67), tentatively identified as ‘Hannibal showing his Army the fertile Plains of Italy’. But it is possible that they are copied from details of a painting by, say, Salvator Rosa (1615–1673).