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

In the upper section of this page, written with the sketchbook turned vertically, Turner listed days of the week in Italian, with a column of numbers to the right: ‘Lunedi – [?Per] | Martedi – 2 | Mercoledi 2 4 | [?Gio]vedi C[...] 2 | 8’. A further column to the right, largely overwritten by the Executors’ inscription in ink, reads ‘3 | 3 | 3’.

In the lower half of the page is a swift pencil study of an unidentified building, with two tiers of arcading and a belltower to the right.

Along the right side of the page, written in accordance with the sketchbook’s foliation (and thus descending vertically in relation to the notes and drawing), is the customary endorsement by the Executors of the Turner Bequest. It includes signatures by Charles Turner and Henry Scott Trimmer, together with the original schedule number of the sketchbook: ‘N^o 194. This book contains 48 leaves | Pencil Sketches most on both sides – | H. S. Trimmer | C. Turner’. Inscribed in pencil towards the gutter of the sketchbook are the initials of the two assessors, John Prescott Knight and Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, which appear as ‘C.L.E.’ and ‘JPK’.