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

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the upper half of the page is taken up with the following notes, presented here as equivalent individual lines as the sense is unclear. The handwriting is illegible in parts and the soft pencil is rather rubbed. In all, the transcription should be taken as highly tentative:

The inscription appears to relate to Germany and also mentions Italy, and perhaps represents an itinerary. Turner had travelled in Germany in 1817, but his subsequent major tour of Italy involved outward and return journeys through France instead, as set out in Nicola Moorby’s Introduction to the ‘First Italian Tour 1819–20’ of this catalogue. There are notes concerning a potential series of Rhine views stemming from the 1817 tour on folios 7 recto and verso, 8 recto and 35 recto (D13763–D13765, D13804), and a few sketches possibly made on or relating to the German tour on other pages (see the sketchbook’s Introduction).