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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Pencil Mark 1801

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Pencil Mark’ 1801
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 12 Verso:
A Pencil Mark 1801
D05087
Turner Bequest LXXXII 12a
Pencil on white wove paper, 161 x 256 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Yorkshire’ bottom left
Inscribed in pencil ‘LXXXII | p12. Sch 147’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXXII – 12a’ bottom right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, there is a roughly horizontal pencil line above the inscription at the bottom left, perhaps the first stroke of an abandoned landscape sketch. Although at first sight Finberg’s 1909 Inventory includes an entry for this page (‘12a. Sketch of broken ground’),1 his comment appears to relate rather to the drawing of cliffs on folio 11 verso (D05085).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

Revised by Matthew Imms
April 2015

1
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.219.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Pencil Mark 1801 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, revised by Matthew Imms, April 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-pencil-mark-r1178655, accessed 14 July 2026.