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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Stirling and the West Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscriptions and Sketches 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscriptions and Sketches’ 1831 (Inside back cover of sketchbook)
Inside back cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Back Cover:
Inscriptions and Sketches 1831
D41083
Turner Bequest
Pencil on white wove paper, 125 x 201 mm
Inscribed in pencil by ?Turner ‘H A J Munro Esq | Novar House | Evanton NB’ top, and ?‘J Conway’ left running vertically
Inscribed in brown ink by Henry Trimmer ‘No 187.. This book contains 91 leaves | Pencil sketches on both sides – | [signed] H.S. Trimmer’ left running vertically
Signed in brown ink by Charles Turner ‘C. Turner’ beneath Trimmer’s signature running vertically
Signed in pencil by Charles Lock Eastlake ‘C.L.E’ and by John Prescott Knight ‘JPK’ beneath Charles Turner’s signature running vertically
Inscribed in pencil ‘2/’ bottom left running vertically
Inscribed in pencil by A.J. Finberg ‘CCLXX’ upper left running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The inside back cover of this sketchbook was used by Turner and others for inscriptions and several very slight sketches. The first inscription at the top left is written in pencil and matches the handwriting of the longer inscription opposite in the sketchbook on folio 92 verso (D26618). The script is not typical of Turner’s note taking in his sketchbooks, though is a fair match for his more careful handwriting. It gives the address of his friend and patron Hugh Munro whom Turner was to visit at ‘Novar House’ near ‘Evanton’ at the end of his Scottish tour in 1831,1 before returning home via Aberdeen and Edinburgh (see Tour of Scotland for Scott’s Poetical Works 1831 Tour Introduction). Turner gave the same address for correspondence in a letter to Edward Francis Finden posted from Oban on 2 September 1831.2 The pencil inscription ‘J Conway’ written along the left-hand edge of the page is also in the same hand.
A sketch across the centre of the page, drawn with the book inverted from Munro’s address, is a rough outline of a mountain and beneath this is a diagram made up of three squares. At the head of the page, drawn with the head at the top, is a tiny sketch of a ruin which closely matches sketches of Ardtornish Castle on the Morvern shore of the Sound of Mull on folio 82 (D26597).
At the foot of the page, written with the sketchbook inverted, are the endorsements of Turner’s executors. See transcription above.

Thomas Ardill
June 2010

1
Turner’s note ‘NB’ stands for North Britain, i.e. Scotland.
2
Gage 1980, p.145–6 letter 172.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Inscriptions and Sketches 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-inscriptions-and-sketches-r1135053, accessed 25 April 2024.