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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Landscape Sketches by Turner; and an Inscription by James Hakewill 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 13 Verso:
Two Landscape Sketches by Turner; and an Inscription by James Hakewill 1819
D13882
Turner Bequest CLXXI 13 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 88 x 114 mm
Inscribed by James Hakewill in black ink (see main catalogue entry)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains a message to Turner from James Hakewill (1778–1843), who filled this sketchbook with advice for the artist on travelling in Italy (see the introduction to the sketchbook). The text was first transcribed by Finberg,1 and is repeated here with minor variations:
Go to Dee’s, corner of the Piazza di Spagna & | the Via della Croce & buy for me 4 Cameos | in Shells (unmounted). Subjects for a | necklace. | and a Mosaic. ^[encircled] a little | larger ^ for a locket, a large | butterfly or a basket of flowers. | [encircled] Mosaic
Hakewill’s comments represent instructions for buying cameos from a dealer in the Piazza di Spagna in Rome, a district popular with English tourists. He subsequently seems to have changed his mind about his request and crossed through the information, asking Turner instead to purchase for him a ‘head of the pope’, see folio 15 verso (D13886).
Also on this page are two small, rough sketches by Turner of unidentified landscape views.

Nicola Moorby
March 2010

1
Finberg 1909, p.497.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Two Landscape Sketches by Turner; and an Inscription by James Hakewill 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-two-landscape-sketches-by-turner-and-an-inscription-by-james-r1138700, accessed 29 March 2024.