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

The order of the subjects in the book appears somewhat random at times, with some drawings inverted relative to its foliation, and although the 1930s rebinding followed the established numbering, possibly not everything is in Turner’s original sequence. The consistent loss of several millimetres at the gutter of each page (described below) makes any physical matching of leaves on that basis impossible, and disrupts those drawings which continue across two pages. Finberg noted: ‘The leaves were distributed, but numbered. In the packet endorsed [by John Ruskin] “Inferior leaves, 331” were the following pages:– 5–10, 13, 25, 35, 41, 42, 48, 49, 53, 81, 86, 87, 88 (18 in all).’14

The female brass clasp on front cover survives, but only the staples originally anchoring the corresponding rear clasp survive. There is a leather pencil holder along the top edge of the back cover, set between the leather cover and the pastedown. Peter Bower has identified the 1820 paper as by Richard Barnard of Eyehorn Mill, Kent, the same year and maker as for the Worcester and Shrewsbury sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CCXXXIX).15 He categorises the two books with a large number of similar, mass-produced notebooks in the Turner Bequest, subdividing them into six ‘Types’ in terms of their bindings. This and the Worcester and Shrewsbury book are ‘Type 2’: ‘Buff-paper covered boards, brown leather spine, brass clasp, leather pencil holder, approximately 90 leaves (variable)’;16 other ‘Type 2’ sketchbooks with paper watermarked 1820 are Medway, Mortlake and Pulborough and Windsor and Cowes (Tate; respectively Turner Bequest CXCIX, CCXIII, CCXXVI), while the ‘Type 2’ Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Abbotsford and Stirling and Edinburgh sketchbooks are all watermarked 1828 (Tate; respectively CCLXVI, CCLXVII, CCLXIX).17

Unusually, a 1939 card, inscribed in ink in the distinctive hand of Edward Croft-Murray of the British Museum (where the Turner Bequest works on paper were kept and restored after the 1928 Tate flood) with rebinding instructions for this sketchbook and Worcester and Shrewsbury, has been retained in the latter’s storage box:

On the verso of card, in pencil, is a further note: ‘DO NOT BIND THIS CARD IN | – leave loose in book. | [?RR]’.

All the pages have lost about 5 mm at the gutter, and have been pasted systematically onto new stubs of laid paper when the sketchbook was reconstituted. The leather front and back covers have been laid over a new leather spine; despite Croft-Murray’s hope of preserving the ‘old back’ (i.e. spine), it has not survived. There are signs of the pages wrinkling towards the gutter throughout the book; they and the original spine may have been damaged by water, probably in the Tate flood.

Because of additional ‘b’ and ‘c’ rectos after folio 51, the foliation is out of step with Finberg’s numbering from that point, so a concordance is given here: