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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Liber Studiorum notes c.1807-19 > Aesacus and Hesperie Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscriptions by Turner: A List of 'Liber Studiorum' Subjects; Calculations c.1817-18

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscriptions by Turner: A List of 'Liber Studiorum' Subjects; Calculations’ c.1817-18 (Inside back cover of sketchbook)
Inside back cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Back Cover:
Inscriptions by Turner: A List of ‘Liber Studiorum’ Subjects; Calculations c.1817–18
D40933
Pencil on white wove paper, 119 x 87 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned vertically, the following list is written down the left-hand side:
Bonneville    Printed 
Aesacus  }v
Isleworth }    13 
Inverary  } 
C Turner 
Say’s Peacock 
Glenco Lupton 
Deluge 
Kingston 
Glacus Say 
Apuleia. Ditto 
[?Dumbarton ...] 
[?Woman ...] 
Salthill C. Turner 
East Gate [...] 
Rls Bridge Lupton 
Knights Pic 
Snow          {Daw 
Devil Bridge  { 
Church 
Moon 
Putney doubtful1 
This comprises ten published and eleven unpublished subjects from the later stages of Turner’s Liber Studiorum landscape engravings series, with three bracketed for part ‘13’, which was issued with part 14 as the last of the series in January 1819 (Rawlinson/Finberg nos.62–71):2
Bonneville Printed [Rawlinson/Finberg no.64] | Aesacus [66] | Isleworth 13 [63] | Inverary | C Turner [65] | Say’s Peacock [68] | Glenco Lupton [69] | Deluge [88] | Kingston [87] | Glacus Say [73] | Apuleia. Ditto [72] | [?Dumbarton ...] [75] | [?Woman ...] [71] | Salthill C. Turner [74] | East Gate [...] [67] | Rls Bridge Lupton [62] | Knights Pic [77] | Snow Daw [76] | Devil Bridge [78] | Church [70] | Moon [85 or 86] | Putney doubtful [89]
This list is placed in its wider context in the present author’s overall introduction to the Liber Studiorum designs in watercolour and other media (c.1806–24) elsewhere in the present catalogue.3 The dating here follows Gillian Forrester’s analysis of its mixture of published and unpublished subjects.4
There are also notes and calculations to the right, descending vertically relative to the list (and inverted relative to the foliation:
[...] 12000  [...] 1  [...] | 12000 
                   20       |______ 
                               600 
                   1100        20  2200 
                                    110  

Matthew Imms
September 2013

1
Based on transcriptions in Finberg 1909, I, p.489, and Forrester 1996, p.163.
2
Entries in W[illiam] G[eorge] Rawlinson, Turner’s Liber Studiorum, A Description and a Catalogue, London 1878; and Alexander J. Finberg, The History of Turner’s Liber Studiorum with a New Catalogue Raisonné, London 1924.
3
See also Forrester 1996 for notes concerning individual compositions: pp.126 under no.64 and note 4, 135 under no.73 and 136 note 3, 137 under no.74 and note 8, 138 under no.75 and 139 note 4, 139 under no.76 and 140 note 2, 141 under no.77 and note 5, 150 under no.85 and 151 note 2, 155 under no.89 and note 2.
4
Forrester 1996, p.163.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscriptions by Turner: A List of ‘Liber Studiorum’ Subjects; Calculations c.1817–18 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-inscriptions-by-turner-a-list-of-liber-studiorum-subjects-r1147537, accessed 24 April 2024.