Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inscription by Turner 1819
Black pen and ink on paper pasted onto leather, 17 x 119 mm
Inscribed by the artist in black ink on paper ‘[...]s Nap[...]’ centre of spine
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.550.
Turner labelled his sketchbooks on the spine so that he could refer to them with ease when they were stored on a shelf. This label is now almost totally illegible but Finberg recorded that the full inscription once read ‘12. Vesuvius. Napoli. V. Tomb. 1 R
t to Salerno. Paestum, and Return from Naples to Rome’.
1
Nicola Moorby
August 2010
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘Inscription by Turner 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 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-inscription-by-turner-r1138014, accessed 14 July 2025.
