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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Midlands 1830 > Birmingham and Coventry Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: Numbers and ?Names c.1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Numbers and ?Names’ c.1830 (Inside front cover of sketchbook)
Inside front cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Front Cover:
Inscription by Turner: Numbers and ?Names c.1830
D41056
Turner Bequest
Pencil and pen and ink on white wove paper, 110 x 68 mm
Inscribed by Turner and later hands in pencil and ink (see main catalogue entry)
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram top right
Inscribed in pencil ‘CCXL’ centre left
Stamped in black ‘CCXL’ top right, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned vertically, the three lines of pencil notes by Turner at the top each comprise a number followed by scrawled words which may be names, perhaps indicating financial transactions:
24 [?Boy...]
28 Will [...] [?More]
10 Gr[...] [?S Smith]
The Turner Bequest monogram is stamped over the end of the first line. Neatly written in pencil, whether in Turner’s or another hand, ‘bc’ appears immediately below it. What appear to be further accounts are inscribed on folio 1 recto opposite (D22323).
The most prominent inscription is that of Turner’s executors, with the book’s original schedule number endorsed by Henry Scott Trimmer, Charles Turner, John Prescott Knight and Charles Lock Eastlake, starting at the centre in ink ‘No 397 | Contains 67 | leaves – Pencil | sketches – | HS Trimmer’, signed immediately below in ink ‘C Turner’ and initialled in pencil ‘JPK’ and ‘C.L.E.’ at the bottom right.
Technical notes:
At the bottom left there is a circular blob of red wax, partly abraded and with intermittent traces of paper adhering to its surface, although the equivalent part of folio 1 recto opposite (D22323) appears undamaged.
The edges have darkened owing to the irregularly trimmed leather overlaps from the front cover, over which this page is pasted.

Matthew Imms
August 2013

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Numbers and ?Names c.1830 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-inscription-by-turner-numbers-and-names-r1148472, accessed 21 November 2024.