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

Orienting the sketchbook vertically, Turner used the inside back cover for a series of notes, written in Italian and now rather rubbed in places:

Transcribing the notes, Cecilia Powell proposed that they likely relate to Turner’s advertisement of 11 December 1828 for his exhibition in Rome, held at Palazzo Trulli, 49 Via del Quirinale.1 John Gage noted that Turner’s artist friend Charles Eastlake, also then residing in Rome, reported this exhibition in detail ‘and may have helped draft the advertisement’ that appeared in the Diario di Roma on 17 December 1828.2 The wording that was eventually circulated, Powell noted, did not contain a reference to ‘Professore di Prospettiva’.3

Below, at the gutter of the page, is a slight topographical outline of hills, possibly along the Adriatic coast.