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 Inscriptions by Turner: Banknote Numbers Annotated with West Country Place Names 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscriptions by Turner: Banknote Numbers Annotated with West Country Place Names’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 253 Verso:
Inscriptions by Turner: Banknote Numbers Annotated with West Country Place Names 1811
D40905
Inscribed by Turner in ink and pencil (see main catalogue entry) on white laid paper, 117 x 75 mm
Watermark ‘17 8’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page is taken up with the following notes:
14665     X Church       May 27   11 
33208                    May 29   11 
55883                    May 10   11 
29395     T              May 18   11 
33256     T              May 31   11 
45350     Seaton         May 27   11 
64522     Bridport       May 31   11 
/ – /                     27   11 
12969                        16   11 
52635     __ 
20323     Totness            22   11 
68489     Ivybridge          31   11 
46058     Plym               16   11 
47801     Plym                9   11 
60117     Plym                6 
64402     Fowey              22 
73587     Lost               16 
72058     Bridgewater        23 
73493     Wells              22 
64111     Redrut June         3 
28805           [?T June]         11 
As Finberg suggests,1 and as Hanley and Holland concur and discuss in detail,2 the numbers and dates appear to be those of Bank of England £1 notes, acquired before Turner set out for the West Country in the summer of 1811 (see the introduction to the tour), and annotated with the places at which they were broken or spent. There is a another section of the list inside the back cover opposite (D40906); both inscriptions are inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation.
A few of the lines cancelling the numbers in the first column, and some of the place names which follow (particularly from ‘Totness’ onwards), have been marked first in pencil and later gone over in ink. Turner made identifiable drawings of all these places, as set out below in the order in which he would have visited them:
‘X Church’: Christchurch, Dorset (formerly Hampshire): see under folio 22 recto (D08403)
‘Bridport’, Dorset: see under folio 47 verso (D08452)
‘Seaton’, Devon: folios 59 recto, 61 verso (D08475, D08480; CXXIII 56b, 58a)
‘Totness’: Totnes, Devon: see under folio 94 verso (D08542; CXXIII 91a)
‘Ivybridge’, Devon: see under folio 156 verso (D08655; CXXIII 153a)
‘Plym’: Plympton or Plymouth, Devon: see under folio 106 verso (D08565; CXXIII 103a) and folio 3 verso (D08367) respectively
‘Fowey’, Cornwall: see under folio 5 verso (D08371)
‘Lost’: probably Lostwithiel, Cornwall, as written in full inside the back cover (D40906), although the corresponding number is also noted separately on folio 16 verso (D08392), as ‘16 May 1811 73587 Fowey’: see under folio 7 recto (D08374) for nearby Restormel Castle
‘Redrut’: Redruth, Cornwall: see under folio 236 verso (D08780; CXXIII 233a)
‘Bridgewater’: Bridgwater, Somerset: see folio 160 recto (D08662; CXXIII 157)
‘Wells’, Somerset: see under folio 187 verso (D08708; Turner Bequest CXXIII 184a)
Written vertically up the edge of the page from the bottom right corner is the following: ‘[?Hangor] near Bodmin | and Camelford’. The first word is slightly unclear; Finberg reads it as ‘Hangor’, but it might be ‘Hansom’ or ‘Hanson’. There seems to be no location of this name in or around area of Cornwall between Bodmin and Camelford, so the inscription may possibly refer to a person. There is a small sketch of Camelford on folio 6 recto (D08372).

Matthew Imms
June 2011

1
Finberg 1961, p.182.
2
Hanley and Holland 1997, pp.14–15.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscriptions by Turner: Banknote Numbers Annotated with West Country Place Names 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-inscriptions-by-turner-banknote-numbers-annotated-with-west-r1137286, accessed 18 April 2024.