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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales and Isle of Wight 1795-1800 > South Wales Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscriptions by Turner and Another Hand: A Welsh Itinerary and Notes 1795

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscriptions by Turner and Another Hand: A Welsh Itinerary and Notes’ 1795 (Inside front cover of sketchbook)
Inside front cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Front Cover:
Inscriptions by Turner and Another Hand: A Welsh Itinerary and Notes 1795
D40553
Pen and brown ink on white wove paper, 264 x 203 mm
Inscribed in a secretary hand in pen and brown ink with itinerary (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by Turner in pencil with further notes (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed in pencil ‘XXVI’ top left
Stamped in black ‘XXVI’ top left
The whole page is taken up with the following notes in pen and ink. Turner’s pencil annotations are indicated in italics:
          Wells 120 Miles from London. X 
The Cathedral. the Painted Windows in Do particularly the East-Chapter 
House, Cloister very fine. a good Library. The Bishops Palace. Market Cross.  
          Wokey Hole 2 Miles 
Wokey Hole a Cavern on the Mendip Hills 
          Chedder 10 Miles 
on the Mendip Hills – View the deep Valley or Cleft that runs up into the Hill 
these rocks are very beautiful 
          To Cross 3 Miles – (nothing particular)  
          To Bristol Wells 20 [caret: ‘Miles’] (& City) X Bush Inn 
St. Mary Radcliffe – view Hogarths Pictures in Do at the Altar Piece 
          To the Aust Passage. [caret: ‘12 Miles’] to the Passage house at Beachley.  
          To Newport 19 Miles 
Pass through Chepstow, and Carwent view the Walls, the tesselated Pavements 
Newport Castle 
          To Cardiff 12 Miles. Cardiff Arms X 
View the Castle and Church 
          To Llandaff 2 Miles no Inn 
The Ruin of an Old Cathedral & The Bishops Palace only the Gate 
          To Cowbridge 11 Miles X [?D]      remaining 
2 Miles before Cowbridge                 1 Mile [...] towards St Donats 
Distant view of    To St Donats 8 Miles  Llanblythan Catle [sic] Gate 
Penlyn Castle 
The Old Castle near the Sea Shore, There are some remarkable Caverns about 
2 Miles off worn into the Cliff 
          To Ewenny or Wenny (as it is commonly called) 6 Miles 
An Ancient fortified Priory – The Church    Saxon     No Inn 
          To Pile a small Village 6 Miles             No Inn 
Nothing mentioned     X 
This itinerary of a South Welsh tour is in a secretary hand, not Turner’s; Finberg1 suggests his mentor Dr Thomas Monro (this is unlikely), John Kirby or the librarian of the Royal Academy as possible authors. It continues on the recto (opposite) and verso of the first flyleaf and the recto of the second (D40554–D40556).
‘Llandaff’ is the subject of folios 4 recto and 5 recto (D00556, D00557). A watercolour view of Llandaff Cathedral based on the first of these is Tate D00686 (Turner Bequest XXVIII A);2 it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1796. Llanblethian (sic) Castle is recorded in a drawing in the Smaller South Wales sketchbook (Tate D00469; Turner Bequest XXV 8), and a watercolour in Leeds Art Gallery. For ‘Ewenny’, see the drawing in the Smaller South Wales book (Tate D00472; Turner Bequest XXV 11), and the watercolour at National Museum Wales, Cardiff.3

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

1
Finberg 1914, p.90.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.315 no.143, pl.24.
3
Ibid., p.325 no.227, pl.28.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Inscriptions by Turner and Another Hand: A Welsh Itinerary and Notes 1795 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2012, 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-by-turner-and-another-hand-a-welsh-itinerary-r1140875, accessed 26 April 2024.