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

There are five mountain views running down the page, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, including castles and distant buildings. The third and fourth are connected by Turner’s numbers ‘1’ and ‘2’, either as elements of the same prospect or successive studies. The short words or phrase at the bottom is effectively illegible.

Over half of the pages in this book comprise relatively slight sketches from Turner’s homeward route north through the valleys of the Alps via Trento, Bolzano (Bozen) and Innsbruck. As set out in the Introduction, although his overall itinerary is clear from many identified subjects, they were are not drawn in a single sequence, making the rugged scenes between them difficult to place.