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 Name c.1818

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: A Name’ c.1818
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 40 Recto:
Inscription by Turner: A Name c.1818
D12179
Turner Bequest CLIV a 39
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 89 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Mr Cooke –’ top centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘39’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CLIV (a) – 39’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Written with the page turned vertically, this brief, declamatory inscription may the beginning of the draft of a letter, probably to W.B. Cooke, the engraver and publisher with whom Turner collaborated on various series of prints in the 1810s and 1820s,1 or his engraver brother George.2 There are various lists and calculations to do with printmaking business in this sketchbook (see the Introduction), and ‘Cooke’ appears again on folio 59 recto (D12204; CLIV a 58) in notes datable to about 1818.
1
See Gillian Forrester, ‘Cooke, William Bernard (1778–1855)’, in Evelyn Joll, Butlin and Luke Herrmann eds., The Oxford Companion to J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 2001, p.63.
2
See Gillian Forrester, ‘Cooke, George (1781–1834)’, ibid.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
September 2013

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: A Name c.1818 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-name-r1147596, accessed 10 May 2024.