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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Venice to Ancona Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: Title of Sketchbook 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Title of Sketchbook’ 1819 (Front cover of sketchbook)
Front cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Front Cover:
Inscription by Turner: Title of Sketchbook 1819
D40894
Ink on grey paper quarter-bound over brown leather spine on board, 119 x 190 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink ‘Venice to Ancona’ top centre
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram top left
Inscribed in pencil ‘CLXXVI’ towards top right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVI’ top right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Ian Warrell has noted how Turner organised his sketchbooks from the 1819–20 Italian tour with paper spine labels and marking ‘the outer edges of the pages of his standard size books with numbers indicating the sequence in which they had been used, suggesting that he perhaps stowed this core group in a box for frequent reference’.1 In this case, the number ‘4’ marking the top edge of the page block is not repeated here, while the label on the spine (D40893) appears to be numbered ‘9’, although just possibly it could also be ‘4’.2

Matthew Imms
March 2017

1
Ian Warrell, Turner’s Sketchbooks, London 2014, p.15.
2
Ibid., p.234.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Title of Sketchbook 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-inscription-by-turner-title-of-sketchbook-r1186222, accessed 25 April 2024.