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

This page bears an engraved image of urban buildings and integral text in the form of a conventional illustrated frontispiece or title page to the otherwise blank notebook. It is inverted relative to the foliation, reflecting the order in which Turner filled its pages with sketches. The engraving includes a tabulated perpetual calendar, cut with horizontal slits to hold two separate strips of paper printed in Dutch: one with days of the week (D41029; verso D41027); the other with months and a note of the number of days in each (printed face not accessioned; see under the verso, D41030, for transcription).

The fixed part of the calendar is simply a table in vertical columns of seven, from ‘1’ to ‘31’, the maximum number of days in a month. Above, within a rounded pediment-like space, is printed ‘KOOPMANS KANTOOR | ZAKBOEK’ (Koopmans office pocketbook), and at the bottom centre, below the buildings (possibly the manufacturers’ premises): ‘te ROTTERDAM | in de Fabriek en Magazijn | van Kantoor-Behoeften [in the factory and warehouse of office supplies] | G. Meijer h^z,,’.1

In the gutter at the left, level with the day and date table, Turner has inscribed his version of the days of the week in French: ‘–Dim | Lundi | Mardi | Mercred | Samdi | Vendred | Samdi’. The first part of each line extends onto the inside of the back cover opposite (D41031). To the right of the table is a further pencil note: ‘7 | Sep’ (a Monday). The emphatic ‘7’ appears to be written over a ‘5’, but the result is somewhat unclear. Turner has also written the days in abbreviated English form on the relevant printed strip (D41029).

Technical notes:

The page is the rear free endpaper (as foliated; see the discussion above), and the green paper is laminated with the regular white wove comprising the rest of the book; it is continuous with the inside of the back cover (D41031), where the green paper is laminated in turn over a bellows-type pocket.