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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Liber Studiorum notes c.1807-19 > Liber Notes (2) Sketchbook [Finberg CLIV ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of Plates for 'Liber Studiorum' Parts 5-8 c.1808

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of Plates for 'Liber Studiorum' Parts 5-8’ c.1808
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Recto:
Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of Plates for ‘Liber Studiorum’ Parts 5–8 c.1808
D12157
Turner Bequest CLIV a 24
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 89 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘24’ bottom left, descending vertically (smudged)
Stamped in black ‘CLIV (a) – 24’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page, turned vertically, is taken up with the following notes:
5   1 Juvenile Tricks
    2 E.P. Chepstow
    3 Coast of Yorkshire
    4 Hind Head
    5 Spenser Fairy Queen
6   1 Windmill Gd Junction
    2 Boy drvg Sheep. Lewis
    3 Martello Towers
    4 Boats Calm
    5 Cephalus & Procris
7   1 Dunkartons Mill
    2 Minerva Medica
    3 Marine Dabblers
    4 Inverary Pier
    5 Lauffenbourg
8   1 Boys Fishing Jews Harp
    2 St Catherines Hill
    3 Sunset Mildmay
    4 Scotchman
    5 Peat Bog1
This is a provisional list of subjects for four parts of Turner’s Liber Studiorum series of landscape prints; the overall series was issued between 1807 and 1819. The first four parts are noted opposite on folio 24 verso (D12156; Turner Bequest CLIV a 23a). The list appears to have been written at one sitting, departing from the published order after part 2 and thus probably made between its publication in February 1808 and that of part 3 in June.2 It continues as far as part 10, eventually issued in 1812 to complete the first half of the projected series of a hundred prints, on the verso of the current page (D12158; Turner Bequest CLIV a 24a).
An annotated version of this list, with full details of the subjects and their publishing history, can be found in the present author’s overall Introduction to the section of this catalogue dealing with the watercolour studies for the Liber (c.1806–24).
Working lists of subjects within the various categories of the Liber – such as ‘Pastoral’ and ‘Marine’ – run from folio 26 verso to folio 32 recto (D12160–D12171; Turner Bequest CLIV a 25a–31).

Matthew Imms
September 2013

1
See Forrester 1996, pp.160–1 (transcription, followed here with slight variations)
2
Finberg 1924, p.xliii; Forrester 1996, p.13.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of Plates for ‘Liber Studiorum’ Parts 5–8 c.1808 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-inscription-by-turner-a-draft-list-of-plates-for-liber-r1147574, accessed 26 April 2024.