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

The parchment outer cover appears to date from after Finberg’s Inventory, where the sketchbook is described as having ‘paper covers’ only,1 and the inscriptions which Finberg describes as being on the outer faces of the front and back are evident on what are now effectively flyleaves (D40821, D41522). Many leaves show evidence of removal from and replacement on stubs left in the book, with rubbing, darkening and occasional long-standing repairs to small tears at the edges, and rubbed and rounded corners. The edges of the parchment cover are by contrast crisp, and the surfaces clean. It may have been created during conservation work to protect the vulnerable laid paper of the book’s actual cover, presumably to match the construction of the Ivy Bridge to Penzance sketchbook from the same tour, as mentioned above, which has laid paper endpapers within an original parchment cover bearing Turner’s inscription.

The sketchbook’s page order appears relatively undisturbed since Finberg’s 1909 listing, apart from the restoration as folio 9 of a leaf that was then elsewhere, and the question of drawings being numbered as rectos but bound then or since as versos, discussed in individual entries. A further note follows the main concordance. Assuming that the pages are now rebound in their original arrangement, Turner worked with the book held either way up, and often on the left-hand side of the double-page spread rather than his customary right.

A concordance is given to show in particular John Ruskin’s original sequence of numbering in red ink, unusually overridden in this case by Finberg, who noted ‘Mr. Ruskin’s endorsement – “Thirty leaves of Inventory Book No.167. Good for Distribution.” ... The leaves were distributed, but Mr. Ruskin had numbered them before distribution. But as his numbers ran in the reverse order of the journey I have not adopted them for this catalogue, though I have used them to establish the sequence of the pages.’2 Assuming Ruskin inscribed the leaves consistently, his numbers are no longer evident on more than half the pages, as indicated by the queries in the last column.

There are some anomalies in this sequence. The drawings on the following folios are bound as versos, with the Tate ‘D’ numbers initially allocated to their respective (blank) rectos when accession numbers were allocated now standing for these verso drawings instead, and the subsequent redundant number cancelled in each case: folio 15 verso (D08822): D08823 cancelled; folio 16 verso (D08824): D08825 cancelled; folio 30 verso (D08842): D08843 cancelled; folio 31 verso (D08844): D08845 cancelled; folio 32 verso (D08846): D08847 cancelled.

The drawings on folios 33–36 (D08848–D08851), numbered as if rectos by Finberg, are also bound as versos but there were no redundant ‘D’ numbers in these instances. A further record (D08816) was created for the supposedly ‘missing’ CXXIV 9 in sequence with adjacent drawings, but was subsequently rendered redundant and cancelled as D08940 (Turner Bequest CXXV 49) was correctly rebound as folio 9 recto.