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

With the page turned vertically, the single item ‘Avelanche’1 completes the list of ‘Mountainous’ subjects begun on folio 29 verso opposite (D12166; Turner Bequest CLIV a 28a). This is one of a series of working lists of subjects within the various categories of Turner’s Liber Studiorum series of landscape prints, running from folio 26 verso to folio 32 recto (D12160–D12171; Turner Bequest CLIV a 25a–31). An annotated version, with full details of the subjects and their publishing history, can be found in the present author’s overall Introduction to the section of this catalogue dealing with the watercolour studies for the Liber (c.1806–24).

A provisional list of the first ten parts of a projected twenty, each part comprising five prints drawn from different categories, runs from folio 24 verso to folio 25 verso (D12156–D12158; Turner Bequest CLIV a 23a, 24, 24a); this has been dated to 1808. Since some of the subjects in the category lists appear to have been added as late as 1818,2 the pages are all dated here to c.1808–18.