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

In 1990 Peter Bower identified the paper as by John Larking of Upper Paper Mill, East Malling, Kent, as is that in the Composition Studies sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest LXV), used in about 18058 (see the ‘Thame sketchbooks c.1804–14’ section of this catalogue. Bower later noted in detail that the format is a heavily trimmed Demy Octavo. The paper was made on a single-faced mould, and the drawings were worked on the feltside of the leaves, which appear to be the matching other halves of sheets in the Composition Studies book, where the partial ‘J Lar’ and crowned fleur-de-lys watermarks with the letter ‘L’ and date ‘[1]801’ on many pages correspond with the ‘king’s and partial emblems here. Larking’s high-quality papers were expensive and unlikely to have been used for ready-made memoranda books. The two books may have been ‘homemade by Turner himself’,9 or perhaps commercially to his specification, as discussed in the Introduction to the Composition Studies book, where similar sketchbooks of the period are compared.

The format of this book is also virtually identical to that of the On a Lee Shore (1) and (2) sketchbooks (Tate; Turner Bequest LXVII, LXVIII), but the white laid pages, by a different maker, have been left unwashed, and instead of eight leaves in those cases there are fourteen here. The last is blank and not listed by Finberg, despite having clearly always been integral with the first (D03721), but it is stamped in black ‘LXII 14’ in series with the rest beside the bottom right corner, which appears to have been torn away and made up with similar paper.

In 1909 Finberg described ‘Turner’s label at back’,10 his usual term for a sketchbook’s spine, suggesting that it was in its present position, that is, glued round the fold of the outer sheet as a form of spine, and that there was therefore no cover originally. Although it was presumably once pasted round onto the verso of folio 14, now only the front half on folio 1 recto (D03721) adheres, with the other half folded between it and the modern front cover, apparently to avoid the three stitch holes by which the gathering is attached to the new wrapper and thereby leave Turner’s ink number legible along the crease. It is inscribed ‘106’, while those on the On a Lee Shore books are numbered ‘104’ and ‘103’ respectively.