Turner has used the inside front cover of the sketchbook to make three small sketches and also some written notes and calculations. At the top of the page is a study of an unidentified building with the accompanying inscription, ‘P [?Wales]’ and ‘Antonio Vigioro [?els] de [?Aborgista] Palazza’.
With the sketchbook inverted the artist has furthermore made a very rough, schematic drawing of an unknown building, or group of buildings, and two studies of a man in a coat wearing a tricorn hat. In the corner there is a sum which appears to relate to the artist’s travelling expenses: ‘14 | 5 francs for [?food] | 75 | 3 15 | 1 [?p...] [...] | 3’.
The page has also been numbered ‘284’ as part of the Turner Schedule in 1854 and endorsed by the executors of the Turner Bequest, Henry Scott Trimmer, Charles Turner, John Prescott Knight and Charles Lock Eastlake.
Nicola Moorby
January 2013