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 > Finance Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Reading Abbey; with an Inscription by Turner: The Categories of the 'Liber Studiorum' c.1807-14

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Reading Abbey; with an Inscription by Turner: The Categories of the 'Liber Studiorum'’ c.1807-14
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Recto:
Reading Abbey; with an Inscription by Turner: The Categories of the ‘Liber Studiorum’ c.1807–14
D08321
Turner Bequest CXXII 25
Pencil and pen and ink on white wove paper, 69 x 112 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry) left-hand half of page, ascending vertically
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘25’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CXXII – 25’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
On the right, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, is a slight pencil continuation of the drawing of Reading Abbey on folio 24 verso opposite (D08320), under which the subject is discussed.
The outer half of the page is taken up with the following, written with the page turned vertically:
            <1 Marine>
            <2 Pastoral>
               Epic Compositions   1
               Compositions        2
               Pastoral            3
               Marine              4
               Buildings
This list relates to Turner’s Liber Studiorum series of landscape prints, which had its origins in 1806. The first two lines are cancelled with two large ink ‘X’s, but John Gage has interpreted the remaining terms as relating respectively to the Liber’s Historical, EP, Pastoral, Marine and Architectural categories, with ‘epic’ thus equating with ‘historical’1 – as Gillian Forrester concurs, ‘Epic is a narrative form’.2
The presence of this note has determined this sketchbook’s placement within a grouping of Liber-related material (see the sketchbook’s Introduction). The wording’s significance is discussed in the context of the Liber’s scope and categorisation in the present author’s overall Introduction to the separate ‘Liber Studiorum c.1806–24’ section of this catalogue.

Matthew Imms
September 2013

1
Gage 1987, p.250 note 53.
2
Forrester 1996, p.31.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Reading Abbey; with an Inscription by Turner: The Categories of the ‘Liber Studiorum’ c.1807–14 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-reading-abbey-with-an-inscription-by-turner-the-categories-r1147797, accessed 19 April 2024.