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 (1) Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of Later 'Liber Studiorum' Subjects ?1815

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of Later 'Liber Studiorum' Subjects’ ?1815 (Inside back cover of sketchbook)
Inside back cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Back Cover:
Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of Later ‘Liber Studiorum’ Subjects ?1815
D40871
Pencil on white wove paper, 160 x 102 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The top third of the page is taken up with the following notes:
Glacus and Scylla – H
Ld Egremont Isis – EP
C Turner Inverary M
Twickenham Bridge – P
Daws Bonneville – E P or M
Glen crow Lupton – M
Eacus and Hippolita – H
Tempest – H
Church – A
The left-hand part of the first four lines is written over an earlier pencil calculation:
[...] 78 13 8
[...]446 ’ ’
[...]524
There appears to be another figure, possibly a ‘3’, in the thousands column of the total, but the left-hand part of the sum is illegible due to abrasion, staining and the subsequent inscription. The significance of the figures to the right is unclear.
The list comprises some of the later subjects from Turner’s Liber Studiorum print series (for a detailed overview see the introduction to the main Liber section of c.1806–24 in the present catalogue). The numbering in the concordance below is that of the standard Rawlinson and Finberg catalogues of the prints.1 The landscape categories corresponding with Turner’s initials are followed by cross-references to individual catalogue entries for related watercolour studies in the Turner Bequest when these exist; otherwise, brief notes are appended:
‘Glacus and Scylla – H’
Rawlinson/Finberg no.73: Glaucus and Scylla: Historical; unpublished; watercolour study: Tate D08170 (Vaughan Bequest CXVIII P)
‘Ld Egremont Isis – EP’
No.68: Isis: Elevated Pastoral; published 1819; watercolour study: Tate D08168 (Vaughan Bequest CXVIII N)
‘C Turner Inverary M’
No.65: Inverary Castle and Town, Scotland: Mountainous; engraving dated 1816 but published 1819; watercolour study: Tate D08165 (Turner Bequest CXVIII K)
‘Twickenham Bridge – P’
No.62: Water Cress Gatherers: Pastoral; published 1819; no watercolour study known: Gillian Forrester notes ‘artist’s proof touched in sepia and colours’ in an 1865 sale, now untraced; see Finberg2 and Forrester3 for further details. Also noted in ‘Pastoral’ list in Liber Notes (2) sketchbook (Tate D12160; Turner Bequest CLIV (a) 25a),4 and in Liber list inside back cover of Aesacus and Hesperie sketchbook (Tate D40933; Turner Bequest CLXIX).5
‘Daws Bonneville – E P or M’
No.64: Bonneville, Savoy: Elevated Pastoral or Mountainous; engraving dated 1816 but published 1819 as a Mountainous subject; watercolour study: Tate D08164 (Turner Bequest CXVIII J)
‘Glen crow Lupton – M’
No.69: Ben Arthur, Scotland: Mountainous; published 1819; no watercolour study known: for further details, see Finberg6 and Forrester.7 Also noted as ‘Glen Croe’, in ‘Mountainous’ list in Liber Notes (2) sketchbook (Tate D12166; Turner Bequest CLIV (a) 28a),8 and again, as ‘Glenco Lupton’, in Liber list inside back cover of Aesacus and Hesperie sketchbook (Tate D40933; Turner Bequest CLXIX).9
‘Eacus and Hippolita – H’
No.66: Æsacus and Hesperie: Historical; published 1819; watercolour study with etched outlines: Tate D08166; Turner Bequest CXVIII L. Also noted as ‘[?Esacus and Hesperie]’, in a list of ‘Historical’ subjects in the Liber Notes (2) sketchbook (Tate D12171; Turner Bequest CLIV (a) 31). Aeacus and Hippolyta are unrelated mythological characters, so their conjunction in the present note is probably inadvertent, as Kathleen Nicholson has observed.10
‘Tempest – H’
Possibly no.61. Tenth Plague of Egypt: Historical; published 1816; watercolour study: Tate D08162; Turner Bequest CXVIII H.11 The same title appears in the ‘Historical’ list in the Liber Notes (2) sketchbook (Tate D12171; Turner Bequest CLIV a 31); in her annotated transcriptions of both lists and elsewhere in her study of the Liber, Forrester notes John Gage’s suggestion of a connection with the long-untraced painting The Army of the Medes Destroyed in the Desart by a Whirlwind, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1801,12 as well as discussing less likely candidates.13
‘Church – A’
No.70. Interior of a Church: Architectural; published 1819; no watercolour study known: possibly etched and engraved directly from small painting Interior of a Gothic Church of about 1797 (Tate N05536),14 derived from study in Wilson sketchbook of similar date (Tate D01143–D01144; Turner Bequest XXXVII 26–27). For further details, see Finberg15 and Forrester.16 Also noted in list of Liber works inside back cover of Aesacus and Hesperie sketchbook (Tate D40933; Turner Bequest CLXIX).17
Gillian Forrester dates this list to before the end of 1815, as the engraving of Bonneville is lettered ‘Jan 1. 1816’ and definitely assigned to the Mountainous category by then, and the Inverary engraving carries the same date.18

Matthew Imms
September 2013

1
W[illiam] G[eorge] Rawlinson, Turner’s Liber Studiorum, A Description and a Catalogue, London 1878 and revised ed., London 1906; Alexander J. Finberg, The History of Turner’s Liber Studiorum with a New Catalogue Raisonné, London 1924.
2
Finberg 1924, pp.245–8 no.62.
3
Forrester 1996, p.124 no.62.
4
Ibid., p.161 (transcribed).
5
Ibid., p.163 (transcribed).
6
Finberg 1924, pp.273–6 no.69.
7
Forrester 1996, p.131 no.69.
8
Ibid., p.162 (transcribed).
9
Ibid., p.163 (transcribed).
10
Nicholson 1990, pp.149, 213 note 12.
11
As suggested in Finberg 1909, I, p.410.
12
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.13–15 no.15.
13
Forrester 1996 pp.149, 150 note 5, 160, 163
14
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.21 no.24, pl.22.
15
Finberg 1924, pp.277–80 no.70.
16
Forrester 1996, p.132 no.70.
17
Ibid., p.163 (transcribed).
18
Ibid., p.159.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: A Draft List of Later ‘Liber Studiorum’ Subjects ?1815 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-later-liber-studiorum-r1147755, accessed 20 September 2024.