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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > History Painting c.1799-1807 > Academies Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner List of Pictures, Clients and Price (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1800-7

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘List of Pictures, Clients and Price (Inscriptions by Turner)’ c.1800-7
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 68 Recto:
List of Pictures, Clients and Price (Inscriptions by Turner) circa 1800–7
D05244
Turner Bequest LXXXIV 69
Inscribed by Turner (see main catalogue entry) in pen and ink on white wove paper, 119 x 73 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘69’ top right, running vertically
Stamped in black ‘LXXXIV 69’ top right, running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page is inscribed by Turner as follows:
        Gt. Devils Bridge causeway        G 
        Upper Fall of Riquenbach          Mr. Fawkes  50 
        Mt. Blanc fr St. Martin 
Three works are noted here, all, in the most plausible reading of Turner’s shorthand, for Walter Fawkes and priced at fifty guineas each. They are watercolours: The Passage of Mount St Gothard, Taken from the Centre of the Teufels Broch (Devil’s Bridge), Switzerland (Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal);1 The Great Fall of the Reichenbach, in the Valley of Hasle, Switzerland (Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford);2 and perhaps Mont Blanc, from the Bridge at St Martin (private collection)3 if this belonged to Fawkes as usually thought. The first two works were shown at Turner’s Gallery in 1804; the date of ?1807 proposed by Andrew Wilton for the last may be too late if it is listed with them here, unless the commission took longer to complete. However, if all three works were indeed priced the same, there must be real doubt as to whether this particular watercolour was part of the trio as it is much smaller than the other two, which are among the most spectacular works in any media to spring from Turner’s Alpine tour in 1802. See the note to folio 65 verso (D05240) for the lists of pictures in this sketchbook.
1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.341 no.366.
2
Ibid., p.341 no.367.
3
Ibid., p.342 no.379.
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
November 2004

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘List of Pictures, Clients and Price (Inscriptions by Turner) c.1800–7 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2004, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-list-of-pictures-clients-and-price-inscriptions-by-turner-r1178430, accessed 26 April 2024.