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

There are some indecipherable pencil lines on this page, but the most recognisable visual element is the detail sketch of an armorial tablet. As Finberg was the first to observe this is identifiable with those on the West Lodges at Farnley Hall, which Turner drew elsewhere in the present sketchbook (D12019–D12020; Turner Bequest CLIII 14a–15). As Finberg noted, Turner’s date clearly reads ‘1818’. This is at variance with dates of ‘1618’ legible on the present tablets on the buildings. These, however, are modern reconstructions of no-doubt weathered originals, presumably restored in the belief that the lodges were of Jacobean origin. On one of the tablets, photographed by the present writer in 1979, the second digit was missing, but a ‘6’ had been added in chalk, presumably as a guide for the restorers. Turner’s drawing offers evidence of a nineteenth-century, indeed contemporary date, raising the possibility of some involvement of his own in the design of the buildings (see also notes to D12020). At the top right is a pencil detail of the profile of a capital similar to that of the piers of the East Gates at Farnley, which certainly seem to have been designed by Turner and are also drawn in detail in this sketchbook (D12017–D12018; Turner Bequest CLIII 13a–14).

Turner’s arithmetic (presumably financial) reads: