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

The page is inscribed by Turner, mainly in pencil but with one name, Mr Parker, in ink, as follows:

See the note to folio 65 verso (D05240) for the lists of pictures in this sketchbook. Here, as in the previous list, not all works or patrons can be identified. Of the first two pictures and of Mr Hancock, nothing is known. The Conway is the Conway Castle of circa 1803 (Trustees of the Grosvenor Estate),1 acquired by William Leader. ‘Kilgarron Castle’ is presumably Kilgarran Castle on the Twyvey, Hazy Sunrise Previous to a Sultry Day, Royal Academy 1799 (The National Trust).2 The price, thirty guineas, is the same that Turner charged ‘a drawing master’ of Oxford (thought to be William Delamotte) for Kilgarran.3 Delamotte lived in Oxford until 1803 and the sale of the picture probably coincided with Turner’s visit to the city late in 1802 or some time the following year.4 Subsequently, and before 1808, the picture was bought by Sir John Leicester. Turner’s notes here indicate that the Duke of Bridgewater had also had it on approval, presumably prior to its purchase by Delamotte; the Duke’s death on 8 March 1803 could have resulted in its being returned to Turner. If on the other hand Turner is referring to one of the other known versions of the subject, for example that in the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester,5 the timing of the Duke’s death undermines Beckett’s belief that these date from 1804.

As first suggested by Andrew Wilton, the historical subject for ‘Ld. Carysford’ (John Joshua Proby, 1st Earl of Carysfort) may be The Deluge (Tate N00493)6 as J.P. Quilley’s mezzotint of the picture was dedicated to him posthumously. Turner was at work on the picture during 1804 and probably exhibited it at his own gallery in 1805. If originally intended for Carysfort, it was not acquired by him. The actor Jack Bannister did buy the sea piece listed next, Seascape with a Squall Coming Up, dated by Butlin and Joll to 1803–4 partly on the evidence of the notes in this sketchbook (Malden Public Library, Malden, Massachusetts).7 Neither the further sea piece nor the client, Mr Tomkinson, is known.

The view for ‘Mr Parker’ must have depicted the Forest of Bowland in which Browsholme Hall, the estate of Thomas Lister Parker, is located. Turner had drawn Browsholme in about 1798–9 (private collection)8 and Parker bought Turner’s Sheerness and the Isle of Sheppey, with the Junction of the Thames and the Medway from the Nore (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC)9 probably in 1807. Turner was also at Whitewell near Browsholme in 180910 but probably too late to generate the work listed here. The final item, a Mont Blanc for Mr Green (John Green of Blackheath), is presumably the same as already listed on folio 65 verso, now generally identified as Bonneville, Savoy with Mont Blanc exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1803 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut).11