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

Peter Bower2 suggests that the three different papers of which this book is made up were selected by Turner to be bound together. He conjectures that the white laid printing paper, made by Dupuy in the Auvergne, was intended specifically for printing. Both the French and the English watermark dates, as Bower observes, refer to periods probably considerably earlier than the time of manufacture. Turner went to the trouble of preparing the leaves of French paper with a pinkish wash, but in the event used hardly any of them.

The pages are stamped with Finberg’s Inventory numbers and not according to the original pagination, which was clearly in an order reflected neither in Finberg’s numbering nor in the present binding. Hence the book as bound is confusing, and provides little assistance in the task of identifying the subjects, or the order of execution, of the drawings. Some sequences of sketches are however fairly easily identifiable: the views at Criccieth, Harlech and in the Vale of Llangollen for instance. Wilkinson points out the use of patches of dark pencil hatching to strengthen tonal contrasts in some of the drawings that are otherwise simply outlines, suggesting that this is a technical innovation for Turner.3

The recto of the front flyleaf bears the following pencil inscription by British Museum curator Arthur Magyer Hind:

In 1909 Finberg had noted a ‘Leaf cut out’ after folio 20 (D01375).4 After folio 33 (D01388) he recorded ‘Two leaves torn out’, suggesting D01458 (Turner Bequest XXXIX 94) as one of them;5 the latter is now bound as folio 34. Following folio 44 (D01397; Turner Bequest XXXIX 42; and D41257 on the verso), he noted a ‘Leaf cut out’,6 and after folio 45 (D01398; Turner Bequest XXXIX 43), ‘2 leaves torn out’; he proposed D01456 and D01457 (Turner Bequest XXXIX 92, 93) as the leaves in question,7 and they have since been bound in as folios 46 and 47.

Folio 96 Recto (D01460; Turner Bequest XXXIX 96) seems originally to have come after the leaf now bound as folio 48 recto (D01453; Turner Bequest XXXIX 89). Folio 50 verso (D41433; Turner Bequest XXXIX 45v) was initially given Tate accession number D01401, in sequence with D01400, its recto. A concordance follows from the point where the Turner Bequest and folio numbers diverge.