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 Inscriptions by Turner: Notes on Print Projects c.1818

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscriptions by Turner: Notes on Print Projects’ c.1818 (Inside back cover of sketchbook)
Inside back cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Back Cover:
Inscriptions by Turner: Notes on Print Projects c.1818
D40853
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
With the endpaper turned vertically, the following notes, figures and calculations run for its full height:
[?Harold]      [?9¼  6¼  B... 9]  
Hakewill         8½  5½ 
Coast [?Tynmth]  9 by 6 – – 
 
                     10        10 
 
           12      8½
                                9  ,   6 
         14       10½ 
 
  50  G. s 
  12 . 2                       18 12 
  38  G. s 
 
  37 . 10 
The rather rubbed first word seems to be ‘Harold’. An untraced watercolour design of about 1816, Battle Abbey, the Spot where Harold Fell,1 was engraved in 1819 for Views in Sussex (Tate impressions: T04428–T04430, T06002). The figures which appear to follow match the dimensions of the engraving in inches. There may be a reference to the same subject, as ‘Battle’, in a list on folio 59 recto (D12204; Turner Bequest CLIV a 58).
Cecilia Powell has noted that ‘Hakewill 8 ½ 5 ½’ refers to the size of watercolours based on drawings by James Hakewill and engraved for the latter’s Picturesque Tour of Italy between 1818 and 1820.2 The project is also apparently referred to in Turner’s notes on folio 59 recto (D12204; CLIV a 58).
The line which may be interpreted as ‘Coast Tynmth’ may refer to the watercolour Tynemouth Priory (Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery),3 of about 1818; at 159 x 241 mm its height and width approximate to 6 and 9 inches respectively.
The subtraction at the bottom left may relate to the notes about land at Twickenham immediately opposite on folio 78 verso (D12239; Turner Bequest CLIV a 77a).

Matthew Imms
September 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.348 no.423.
2
See Powell 1982, p.422 note 26; and Powell 1984, p.452 note 21.
3
Wilton 1979, p.362 no.545, reproduced.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscriptions by Turner: Notes on Print Projects c.1818 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-inscriptions-by-turner-notes-on-print-projects-r1147658, accessed 18 April 2024.