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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of 'Liber Studiorum' Mountainous Subjects c.1808-18

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 29 Verso:
Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of ‘Liber Studiorum’ Mountainous Subjects c.1808–18
D12166
Turner Bequest CLIV a 28a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 89 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page, turned vertically, is taken up with the following list:
    Mountainous   
1   Hind Head   
    Inverary Pier   
    Scotchman   
    Peat Bog   
    Thun Lake   
    Bonneville   
   
    Glen Croe   
    Chain of Alps   
    Gt Devils Bridge   
    Little Devil Bridge   
    St Gothard   
    Source of Arveron   
    Mer de Glace1   
This is one of a series of working lists of subjects within the various categories of Turner’s Liber Studiorum series of landscape prints, running from folio 26 verso to folio 32 recto (D12160–D12171; Turner Bequest CLIV a 25a–31). An annotated version, 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). A single further ‘Mountainous’ term concludes this list on folio 30 recto opposite (D12167; Turner Bequest CLIV a 29).
A provisional list of the first ten parts of a projected twenty, each part comprising five prints drawn from different categories, runs from folio 24 verso to folio 25 verso (D12156–D12158; Turner Bequest CLIV a 23a, 24, 24a); this has been dated to 1808. Since some of the subjects in the category lists appear to have been added as late as 1818,2 the pages are all dated here to c.1808–18.

Matthew Imms
September 2013

1
See Forrester 1996, p.162 (transcription, followed here with slight variations)
2
Ibid., p.14.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of ‘Liber Studiorum’ Mountainous Subjects c.1808–18 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-liber-studiorum-r1147583, accessed 18 April 2024.