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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country 1811 > Devonshire Coast, No.1 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: Title of Sketchbook 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Title of Sketchbook’ 1811 (Front cover of sketchbook)
Front cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Front Cover:
Inscription by Turner: Title of Sketchbook 1811
D40902
Ink on brown leather over board, 122 x 84 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink ‘Devonshire Coast | 1’ towards top
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s inscription is not mentioned specifically in Finberg’s Turner Bequest Inventory.1 Although he evidently followed Turner’s wording in coining the title ‘Devonshire Coast No. 1 Sketch Book’,2 he did not place the relevant words in double quotation marks, his usual practice in adopting Turner’s own wording.
The inscription appears to read as given above, although it is difficult to make out against the leather surface, which may have darkened through time and handling. As the inscription is upside down in relation to the foliated sequence of the book, the positions and orientations given above are as read when the book is turned with the clasp to the left and the spine to the right.

Matthew Imms
June 2011

1
See A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, pp.342–53.
2
Ibid., p.342.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Title of Sketchbook 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2011, 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-title-of-sketchbook-r1136836, accessed 19 April 2024.