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

D31416–D31426; D31428–D31466; D31468–D31559; D31561–D31567; D31569–D31570; D31572–D31575; D31577–D31581; D31583–D31586; D31588–D31592; D31594–D31597; D41262–D41263; D41500

Turner Bequest CCCXI 1–94a

Sketchbook half bound in boards and blue and red marbled paper, with brown parchment spine and corners; four brown leather loops attached to inside front and back covers
Pouch lined with blue paper embossed with circle and diamond motif, attached to front cover pastedown with linen gussets
Binders ticket affixed rear of inside back cover, reading ‘Bey Anton Lehenbauer | bürgerlichen | Buchbinder | in Wien, Stadt, Rothgasse | N^o 641.’
Foredge marked with ink lines
Inscribed and signed in pen and black ink by Henry Scott Trimmer ‘N^o 246 | Containing 91 Leaves | Pencil sketches, all on both | Sides H.S. Trimmer’, front cover
Signed in pen and black ink by Charles Turner, front cover
Stamped twice with Turner Bequest monogram, front cover
Inscribed in pencil ‘CCCXI’ top left front cover pastedown and centre right back cover pastedown
Stamped in black ‘CCCXI’ top left front cover pastedown
94 leaves off-white lined paper
Approximate size of page 184 x 113 mm

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Turner arrived in Vienna on 25 August 1833.1 In need of a new sketchbook, he purchased this one from a stationer near his accommodation at the Golden Lamb in Leopoldstat. ² According to the original binder’s ticket, which is still glued to the inside front cover, the sketchbook was bound by ‘Anton Lehenbauer’ operating from the ‘Rothgasse’ in Vienna (Tate D41263).

Named by Cecilia Powell in a revision of Finberg’s title, this sketchbook, the Vienna up to Venice, was the fourth Turner used on the 1833 tour.3 The skechbook opens with rough copies of paintings from the imperial picture collection in Vienna’s Upper Belvedere (Tate D31417, D31425–D31428; Turner Bequest CCCXI 5v–7). Tate D41262, D31416; Turner Bequest CCCXI 1 contains drafts of Rubens’ Portrait of Hélène Fourment in a Fur Wrap and a Venetian School Ecce Homo with notes recording artists’ names, dates, and references to paintings in other collections. Sketches taken in Vienna and its outskirts show St Stephen’s Cathedral, a view down the Weihburggasse to the Franciscan Church, the Karlskirche and the Danube valley from the Leopoldsberg and Wienerwald (Tate D31429, D31431–D31452, D31450–D31452, D31454–D31457, D31596; Turner Bequest CCCXI 7a, 8a–19, 20–21a, 94).

From Vienna Turner travelled crosscountry by carriage to Salzburg (Tate D31483–D31486; Turner Bequest CCCXI 34a–36) via Frankenmarkt and Vöcklabruck (Tate D31469, D31472; Turner Bequest CCCXI 27a, 29). He crossed briefly into Bavaria before reentering the Austrian Empire for the Tyrol. A ‘colossal glacier’ was encountered along the way, depicted in a series of mountain sketches on Tate D31508; Turner Bequest CCCXI 47. Turner’s impressions of the Tyrolean state capital Innsbruck, which he reached on 3 September, are recorded on Tate D31521–D31530, D31543; Turner Bequest CCCXI 53a–58, 65.

Travelling south through the Brenner Pass and Bolzano (Tate D31551; Turner Bequest CCCXI 69) the following days were spent in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of northern Italy. Turner stopped at Verona, making numerous studies of the city centre and its surrounding hillside (Tate D31531–D31532, D31538–D31542, D31547–D31563, D31577, D31580; Turner Bequest CCCXI 58a–59, 62a–64a, 67–75, 83, 84a). His tour of the city took in the principal piazze, palazzi and monuments, including the Roman Arena on the Piazza Bra, the Lamberti Tower on the Piazza delle Erbe and the Scaliger Tombs, a group of gothic funerary monuments commemorating the powerful Della Scalla family. The drawings of Verona’s Arena on Tate D31547–D31548; Turner Bequest CCCXI 67–67a are marked with blots of red and blue watercolour and were subsequently developed into watercolour design to illustrate Cadell’s edition of Scott’s Prose Works published in 1835 (Tate impression T04738).4

Turner arrived at Venice on 9 September, having stopped at Padua and Dolo on the way (Tate D31500, D31555; Turner Bequest CCCXI 43, 71). The Venetian subjects in this sketchbook (Tate D31518, D31570–D31574; Turner Bequest CCCXI 52, 79–81) offer a glimpse of the artist’s first impressions of the city. He would go on to use a separate sketchbook (Turner Bequest CCCXIV) to record its great landmarks and waterways in detail before making the return journey back to England later in the month (Turner Bequest CCCXII).