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

D18479, D18481, D18483–D18524, D40743

Turner Bequest CCX a 1–41

Sketchbook bound in blue-grey laid wrapping paper outer covers laminated with paste-downs of the same white laid paper used for the pages
41 leaves of white laid writing paper, Demy Octavo, page size 115 x 187 mm; interspersed with three replacement leaves of similar white laid paper
Made by William Phipps at Crabble Mill, River, Kent; various original pages watermarked with partial element of heraldic crown and fleur-de-lys design and countermarked partially ‘pps’
Inscribed by Turner in ink on a label on the spine (D40743) ‘118’
Numbered 204 as part of the Turner Schedule, and endorsed by the Executors of the Turner Bequest, Charles Turner, John Prescott Knight and Charles Lock Eastlake in ink ‘No 204 – | This book contains | 37 leaves Pencil | Sketches of Femals [sic] | not – | C Turner’ and in pencil ‘JPK’ and ‘C.L.E.’ below, on laid paper label pasted towards right of front cover
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram within label on front cover
Inscribed in pencil ‘S38’ toward stop right of front cover, and stamped in black ‘CCX(a)’ top right
Inscribed in pencil by ?John Ruskin ‘AB. 42’ top left inside front cover
Inscribed in pencil ‘CCX(a)’ top centre inside front cover
Stamped in black ‘CCX(a)’ towards top left inside front cover

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Most of the drawings in this sketchbook book are rapid pencil studies of couples and figure groups, many of which are explicit, representing a ‘rapid and concentrated burst of erotic obsession’;1 others may be similar in intent, but are difficult to make out, and there are occasional intentional or fortuitous allusions to classical or biblical subjects. The exceptions are a small landscape study on folio 1 verso (D18479; CCX a 1) and a page of Royal Academy accounts on folio 2 verso (D18481; CCX a 2) from which the sketchbook’s euphemistic name derives, while Finberg’s titles for the individual sketches are equally restrained.

Erotic material is scattered through the Turner Bequest, although this sketchbook comprises the largest body of such pencil studies; only the often equally vague watercolours in the Colour Studies (1) and (2) sketchbooks (Tate; Turner Bequest CCXCI b and c) represent similar concentrations.2 Finberg noted John Ruskin’s endorsement of ‘a parcel’ including this book: “A.B. 42 P.B. They are kept as evidence of the failure of mind only.” ‘AB. 42’ is also inscribed inside the front cover. Intentionally or otherwise Finberg also expurgated the Turner Bequest executors’ note on the outside of the front cover (‘This book contains | 37 leaves Pencil | Sketches of Femals [sic] | not –’), omitting the last three words.3 Ian Warrell suggests that the last word may derive in turn from a note in the 1854 Turner Bequest schedule: ‘not to be opened carelessly’.4

Presumably C.L. Hind, in his general 1910 book on Turner, had not looked at the sketchbook itself but was ingenuously quoting Finberg’s new Inventory, as he describes Ruskin’s endorsement as ‘curious’ and confuses the two senses of ‘figures’: ‘This Sketch-Book is devoted mainly to figures, probably Academy finance; but Turner soon tires of sums, and turns to matters more congenial – to sketches of a Sleeping Figure, a Running Figure, Nymph with Children, Satyrs at Play, and A Falling Figure’.5

In the light of Peter Bower’s analysis and dating of its paper to 1802 (see the technical notes) and his comparison with the similar Cockermouth sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CX), used in 1809, Ian Warrell has suggested that the figure sketches in the present book date from about 1810 on stylistic grounds,6 and the latter date has been adopted for the present catalogue. For the dating of the Royal Academy accounts, extending the sketchbook’s datable range to about 1824, see under D18481.