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

This is one of numerous pages in this sketchbook relating to Turner’s self-designed Twickenham house, Sandycombe Lodge (see the Introduction to the sketchbook). Here there is a plan of the triangular plot with a provisional version of the house (of the broad, shallow ‘Type B’ type categorised by Patrick Youngblood, as discussed in the Introduction to the Sandycombe section) set along the shortest (western) side, showing Turner’s ‘keen interest’ in the garden;1 the plan has been described as ‘like his buildings, plain and functional with none of the brio of those he included in his pictures of imaginary gardens’.2

Technical notes:

This page is a face of one of the loose bifolio sheets which form the majority of the so-called Sandycombe and Yorkshire sketchbook, along with a few single leaves. The sheets were not bound, but folded inside each other in a sequence which is not entirely recoverable (see the sketchbook’s Introduction for a suggested order). When unfolded, this page is continuous with D08977 (CXXVII 10); the measurements given above are for the present work alone. The sheet is noticeably off-white – whether inherently or from time and exposure is not clear.