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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > North Wales 1799-1801 > Dolbadarn Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: Description of Sketchbook c.1799

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Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Label on Spine:
Inscription by Turner: Description of Sketchbook c.1799
D40765
Ink on white vellum label pasted on leather spine of sketchbook, 25 x 72 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink ‘38 Studi[?es. Col.]’ at centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
David Hill initially suggested that Turner probably added his sequence of numbered and annotated paper spine labels during a general review of his sketchbooks in about 1821 or 1822,1 later revising this to the second half of 1824 on the dating evidence of some of the relevant books.2 Ian Warrell has subsequently reasoned that the process began in 1823, ending in the summer of 1824.3 However, to avoid a misleadingly extended range for this sketchbook, the date heading here is in line with its general contents.
1
See David Hill, ‘The Landscape of Imagination and the Sense of Place: Turner’s Sketching Practice’ in Maurice Guillaud, Nicholas Alfrey, Andrew Wilton and others, Turner en France, exhibition catalogue, Centre Culturel du Marais, Paris 1981, pp.143 147 note 34.
2
See David Hill, Turner on the Thames: River Journeys in the Year 1805, New Haven and London 1993, p.176 note 79.
3
See Ian Warrell, Turner’s Sketchbooks, London 2014, pp.15–16, 236 note 34, and p.234 for annotated checklist of ‘Turner’s Sketchbook Sequences’.
Technical notes:
The label has apparently suffered some fragmentary losses since 1909, making the inscription less clear than when Finberg transcribed it.1

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

Revised by Matthew Imms
March 2015

1
See Finberg 1909, I, p.113.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Inscription by Turner: Description of Sketchbook c.1799 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, revised by Matthew Imms, March 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-inscription-by-turner-description-of-sketchbook-r1180038, accessed 12 May 2024.