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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Tivoli Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Blank Test Sheet with Lifted Highlights 1819

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Blank Test Sheet with Lifted Highlights’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 81 Recto:
Blank Test Sheet with Lifted Highlights 1819
D15553
Turner Bequest CLXXXIII 81
Grey watercolour wash on white wove paper, 253 x 200 mm
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXIII 81’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Like many pages within the Tivoli sketchbook, this sheet has been prepared with a grey watercolour wash. As Finberg identified, Turner has used the paper to experiment with ways of lifting the wash to create white highlights.1 Similar effects were repeatedly employed within Turner’s Tivoli drawings to create tonal studies of the landscape, architecture and waterfalls.
1
Finberg 1909, p.541.
Verso:
Blank, except for traces of grey watercolour wash

Nicola Moorby
February 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Blank Test Sheet with Lifted Highlights 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-blank-test-sheet-with-lifted-highlights-r1137829, accessed 15 May 2025.