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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Studies Related to Oil Paintings c.1819 ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Walter Fawkes: The Artist's Name and Address 1824

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Walter Fawkes: The Artist's Name and Address’ 1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inscription by Walter Fawkes: The Artist’s Name and Address 1824
D40317
Ink on white laid paper, 128 x 227 mm
Inscribed in ink ‘J.M.W. Turner, Esqr. | Queen Anne St. | Harley St. | London’ bottom centre
Inscribed in ink with ?payment or delivery mark over address
Stamped in black with superimposed postmarks ‘B | 5 JU 5 | 1824’ and ‘OTLEY | [?YORK]’ and blind-stamped with circled grid of nine dots, top centre, upside down
Inscribed in pencil ‘CCLXXX [...]’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The June or July 1824 postmark indicates Otley, north-west of Leeds, and the confident, sloping name and address appears to be in the hand of Walter Fawkes (1769–1825), Turner’s close friend and major patron, of nearby Farnley Hall (see David Hill’s ‘Farnley Hall and Yorkshire c.1808–24’ section in the present catalogue); compare a letter from him to Turner from about 1818 (Tate D12123; Turner Bequest CLIV Y).
Turner used the other side (Tate D27656; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 139) for a compositional study. Compare Tate D40449, an envelope addressed to Fawkes, with a design for a painting on the other side (Tate D34924; Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 427).
Technical notes:
The envelope was folded horizontally above the centre and vertically about a quarter and three-quarters of the way across.

Matthew Imms
August 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Walter Fawkes: The Artist’s Name and Address 1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-inscription-by-walter-fawkes-the-artists-name-and-address-r1184441, accessed 25 April 2024.