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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern France 1832 > Paris and Environs Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ink-Stained Parchment Binding 1832

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Ink-Stained Parchment Binding’ 1832 (Front cover of sketchbook)
Front cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Front Cover:
Ink-Stained Parchment Binding
D40622
Parchment stained with ink, 175 x 127 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCLVII’ top left, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The covers of this sketchbook do not owe their unusual appearance to Turner. The volume, which was bought from a Parisian stationer (see entry on the inside front cover D40623), came bound in apparently recycled parchment. The lines of writing that run vertically up the right-hand edge of the cover are back-to-front and seem to be of a French dialect. Art historian Ian Warrell has deduced that these lines were written on the side of the parchment bound to the sketchbook and that the ink has slowly become visible on the other side of the sheet.1

John Chu
January 2015

1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, p.49.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Ink-Stained Parchment Binding by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-ink-stained-parchment-binding-r1175194, accessed 27 April 2024.