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 1813 > Chemistry and Apuleia Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: Notes from Nicholson's 'Dictionary of Practical and Theoretical Chemistry' c.1813

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Notes from Nicholson's 'Dictionary of Practical and Theoretical Chemistry'’ c.1813
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 62 Recto:
Inscription by Turner: Notes from Nicholson’s ‘Dictionary of Practical and Theoretical Chemistry’ c.1813
D09973
Turner Bequest CXXXV 62
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 88 x 113 mm
Part watermark ‘mott | 11’
Inscribed by Turner in ink with notes on chemistry (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘62’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CXXXV – 62’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The following note runs along the top of the page:
Solution of Ammonia enabl[...] oil of Turpentine | to dissolve Copal ¿ [?10]
There is a heavy blot, offset from folio 61 verso opposite (D09972), over the end of the illegible word. There is further offsetting from the rest of the ink inscription opposite. Without establishing its origin, Joyce Townsend notes that this recipe is ‘probably [for] another copal varnish’.1
This is one of fourteen pages of notes on varnishes and colours resulting from chemical reactions between the verso of the present leaf (D09974) and folio 55 recto (D09959), working from the back of the sketchbook as now foliated. As discussed in the sketchbook’s Introduction,2 most are taken from William Nicholson’s 1808 Dictionary of Practical and Theoretical Chemistry, in this case, as Townsend deduced, from the unpaginated entry on ‘Copal’:
Lewis had observed, that solution of ammonia enabled oil of turpentine to dissolve copal: and Mr. Sheldrake found it did, when added in the proportion of an eighth part.
Turner’s notes from the passage preceding this are at the foot of folio 61 verso opposite (D09972).
1
Townsend 1992, p.8, with transcription (followed here with slight variations).
2
See also summary in Imms 2011, p.4.
Technical notes:
A small, circled spot of foxing at the bottom centre shows from the verso (D09974).

Matthew Imms
April 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Notes from Nicholson’s ‘Dictionary of Practical and Theoretical Chemistry’ c.1813 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2014, 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-inscription-by-turner-notes-from-nicholsons-dictionary-of-r1147928, accessed 20 September 2024.