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

D08865–D08939, D40815–D40817

Turner Bequest CXXV 1–48

Sketchbook bound in parchment
48 leaves of white wove paper bound as a single gathering within single free endpapers of off-white laid paper, page size 166 x 208 mm
Laid paper made by John Fellows at Eynsford Mill, Kent; wove paper leaves in the second half watermarked ‘Fellows | 1808’
Inscribed by Turner in ink ‘Ivy Bridge to Pensance [sic]’ on front cover (D40815)
Numbered 136 as part of the Turner Schedule in 1854 and endorsed by the Executors of the Turner Bequest, recto of front endpaper (see main catalogue entry)

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

This is the second of the medium-sized sketchbooks Turner used in the West Country in 1811 (see the introduction to the tour) in parallel with the small Devonshire Coast, No.1 guidebook-sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CXXIII), which includes some of the same sites, as discussed in individual entries.

Turner had used the similarly constructed Corfe to Dartmouth sketchbook between Corfe Castle in Dorset (Tate D08807; Turner Bequest CXXIV 1) and Dartmouth (Tate D08861, D08862; Turner Bequest CXXIV 46, 47), finishing at Brixham (Tate D08863; Turner Bequest CXXIV 48). He then presumably travelled west via Totnes and began the present book at Ivybridge. He worked at Plymouth and the surrounding area and then followed the southern coast of Cornwall, sketching at Looe, Fowey, Restormel Castle, St Blazey and St Mawes, and around Falmouth. The remaining pages, from 31 verso (D40816) onwards, are detailed studies on and around St Michael’s Mount in Mount’s Bay east of Penzance, hence Turner’s inscription ‘Ivy Bridge to Pensance [sic]’ on the cover (D40815). He subsequently used the sheets now known as the Cornwall and Devon sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CXXV a) around the far west of Cornwall, up its northern coast and on into Devon.