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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country 1811 > Devonshire Coast, No.1 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?A Landscape 1811

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?A Landscape’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Recto:
?A Landscape 1811
D08362
Turner Bequest CXXIII 1
Pencil and pen and ink on white laid paper, 117 x 75 mm
Watermark ‘1798’
Inscribed by Turner in ink with accounts across top (see main catalogue entry), and in pencil ‘[?Jealousy’] bottom centre, upside down
Inscribed twice by John Ruskin in red ink ‘1’ top right and bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CXXIII – 1’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg detected a landscape sketch, but the slight pencil marks at the centre right are now difficult to decipher. They may have been made with the page turned to provide a ‘landscape’ format. There is a word at the foot of the page, written with the book inverted, which may be ‘Jealousy’, and probably relates to the face drawn immediately opposite inside the front cover (D40903).
Turner’s accounts1 are as follows:
Egham      Bill 19 B.B.2.1.8           23  
Hook                                    5  
Blackwater                              3.6  
Turnpike                                2  
                                        1  
                                    _____  
           July 13 1811           [?2] 14 6  
There appears to be a ‘7’ inserted above the ‘8’ in the first line. The ink has spread in places on the absorbent laid paper. Since the figures in the right-hand column represent pounds, shillings and pence, the total should be one pound, fourteen shillings and sixpence, although the first figure is blotted and seems to be a ‘2’. The last two digits of the date are also slightly blotted, but are presumably ‘11’, corresponding with the year of the tour on which this book was used.
Egham, Surrey, and Blackwater and Hook, Hampshire, lie along the route south-west out of London towards Basingstoke and Salisbury, and were ‘well-known stops on the Exeter Road’.2 Turner may have caught a coach at Egham.3 Blackwater is actually between Egham and Hook, rather than further on as Turner implies. The printed route from London ‘to Exeter & the Lands End’ on folio 90 recto (D08533; CXXIII 87) includes Egham, Bagshot and Blackwater, and is annotated ‘Bagshot’ in pencil on folio 89 verso (D08532; CXXIII 86a); Bagshot is between Egham and Blackwater.

Matthew Imms
June 2011

1
As transcribed in Finberg 1909, I, p.344 and Hanley 1992, p.6 (with slight variations).
2
Hanley and Holland 1997, p.16 note 8.
3
Ibid., p.15.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?A Landscape 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2011, 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-a-landscape-r1136838, accessed 23 April 2024.