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

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the pages comprises various swift studies. The clearest shows a rounded jar with handles and a narrow neck, with a note of what Finberg read as its ‘Earthen colour’,1 although the second word may be ‘Glas’, indicating that the item is of glazed earthenware; compare the clearer annotations to an array of wares on folio 81 verso (D19000).

The rest of the sketches are looser, with suggestions of a boat’s hull at the bottom, perhaps parts of a vessel or cargo above, and a cursory outline at the top of what might be a ‘Gilded’ figurehead, possibly relating to the view from the deck of a Ghent-Bruges barge on folio 216 recto (D19268). The occasion was likely a canal journey between the cities, as discussed under folio 214 recto (D19264), where there are detailed studies of one of the richly decorated passenger boats then used on that route. See this sketchbook’s Introduction for discussion of its many studies of domestic items and shipping.