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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Liber Studiorum notes c.1807-19 > Liber Notes (2) Sketchbook [Finberg CLIV ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of Plates for 'Liber Studiorum' Parts 1-4 c.1808

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of Plates for 'Liber Studiorum' Parts 1-4’ c.1808
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 24 Verso:
Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of Plates for ‘Liber Studiorum’ Parts 1–4 c.1808
D12156
Turner Bequest CLIV a 23a
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry) on white wove paper, 112 x 89 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page, turned vertically, is taken up with the following notes:
No 1 – Cows and Bridge
   2 EP .    Bridge
1  3 Basle Bridge
   4 French Coast
   5 Jason
   1 White Horse
2  2 EP Castle
   3 Mt St Gothard
   4 Lord Egremont
   5 Holy Island
3  1 Pembury Mill
   2 Walton Bridges
   3 Leaders
   4 Devils Bridge
   5 Morpeth
4  1 Cocks and Hens
   2 Clyde
   3 Dunstanboro
   4 Thun
   5 Beckfords1
This is a provisional list of subjects for the first four parts of Turner’s Liber Studiorum series of landscape prints; the overall series was issued between 1807 and 1819. It appears to have been written at one sitting, departing from the published order after part 2 and thus probably made between its publication in February 1808 and that of part 3 in June.2 It continues as far as part 10, eventually issued in 1812 to complete the first half of the projected series of a hundred prints, on folios 25 recto opposite and 25 verso (D12157, D12158; Turner Bequest CLIV a 24, 24a).
An annotated version of this list, with full details of the subjects and their publishing history, can be found in the present author’s overall Introduction to the section of this catalogue dealing with the watercolour studies for the Liber (c.1806–24).
Working lists of subjects within the various categories of the Liber – such as ‘Pastoral’ and ‘Marine’ – run from folio 26 verso to folio 32 recto (D12160–D12171; Turner Bequest CLIV a 25a–31).

Matthew Imms
September 2013

1
See Forrester 1996, p.160 (transcription, followed here with slight variations)
2
Finberg 1924, p.xliii; Forrester 1996, p.13.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of Plates for ‘Liber Studiorum’ Parts 1–4 c.1808 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-inscription-by-turner-a-draft-list-of-plates-for-liber-r1147573, accessed 19 April 2024.