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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > County Durham and Northumberland 1817 > Raby Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Pencil Tests or Doodles 1817

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Pencil Tests or Doodles’ 1817
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Recto:
Pencil Tests or Doodles 1817
D12262
Turner Bequest CLVI 1
Pencil on white wove paper, 232 x 328 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram top centre
Inscribed by later hands in ink and pencil (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘1’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLVI 1’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There is one zigzag pencil mark towards the top right corner, together with a few other short strokes, presumably by Turner, either as doodles or to try out a pencil. Finberg does not mention them.
A note of the book’s original schedule number and contents has been endorsed by Turner’s executors Charles Turner, Charles Lock Eastlake and John Prescott Knight, starting at the top left in ink: ‘No 226 | 27 in pencil & 2 in Colour | CTurner’; and initialled in pencil ‘C.L.E.’ and ‘JPK’ below.

Matthew Imms
February 2010

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Pencil Tests or Doodles 1817 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-pencil-tests-or-doodles-r1139453, accessed 24 April 2024.