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

None of the three sketches on the inside back cover of this sketchbook have yet been identified with any certainty. The main sketch, which Finberg called ‘A Town among Hills’,1 is most likely to be either Oban, Argyll (see folio 58 verso; D26855) or Tobermory on the Isle of Mull (see folio 1 verso; D26749), as these are the only communities of any size covered elsewhere in the sketchbook. A possible inscription above the sketch to the right may read ‘Calv,’ in which case it would refer to Calve Island in Tobermory Bay.

Beneath the sketch of a town, perhaps drawn with the book inverted, is a line that may show the profile of a hill, and at the right of the page, drawn with the book turned to the left or right, are a series of scribbles that probably represent clouds.