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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Margate, London and Surrey c.1829-45 > Margate Beach Scenes > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Sailing Boat; a Geometric Grid and Doodles of Letters in Various Styles c.1831-45

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Sailing Boat; a Geometric Grid and Doodles of Letters in Various Styles’ c.1831-45
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Sailing Boat; a Geometric Grid and Doodles of Letters in Various Styles c.1831–45
D34584
Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 191
Pencil on white laid paper, 172 x 155 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘191’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLIV 191’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sheet comprises an array of doodles in the forms of various generally capital letters in regular or cursive italic styles, including playful variations on ‘A’, ‘H’, ‘K’, ‘N’, ‘M’ and ‘Z’. The grid of squares and dots are comparable with those on Tate D34493 (Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 132), which includes the letter ‘N’ in two styles. Although not Margate subjects per se, both sheets are included here on technical grounds; see the notes below. See under Tate D34337 (Turner Bequest CCCXLIII 36a) for closely related works in this Margate subsection and elsewhere.
Technical notes:
Tate D34582–D34585 (Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 190, 190v, 191, 191v) are all on a single sheet, folded vertically (the horizontal dimensions given above being for the whole sheet with notches at the head and foot of the fold. D34582 is to the right of D34585 on one side, with D34583 and the present work respectively on their other sides. The partial watermark ‘mlett’ on other sheets in the sequence discussed under Tate D23337 likely indicates the Devon papermaker Edward Norish Tremlett, operating at various mills around Exeter between 1831 and 1856, in partnership with Dewdney between 1831 and 1833, and Charles Harris between 1833 and 1851.1

Matthew Imms
August 2016

1
See ‘Exeter Working Papers in British Book Trade History; 7: The Devon paper trades: a biographical dictionary: Exeter’, Exeter Working Papers in Book History, accessed 4 May 2016, http://bookhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/devon-paper-trades-exeter.html.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Sailing Boat; a Geometric Grid and Doodles of Letters in Various Styles c.1831–45 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, December 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-sailing-boat-a-geometric-grid-and-doodles-of-letters-in-r1183904, accessed 24 April 2024.