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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Tour of Yorkshire 1816 > Yorkshire 2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: Title of Sketchbook 1816

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Title of Sketchbook’ 1816 (Front cover of sketchbook)
Front cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Front Cover:
Inscription by Turner: Title of Sketchbook 1816
D40844
Ink on green and red marbled paper, half-bound with chestnut leather corners and inner edge, over board (laid down over restored leather spine), 160 x 100 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink ‘Yorkshire 2’ (now very rubbed, and not distinctly legible) towards top
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram on spine cloth towards top left of front cover
Stamped in brown ‘CXLV’ bottom right of front cover, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The location of Turner’s title seems odd at first sight. The inscription must have been made on what he took to be the back cover, as established by the position of the bookseller’s label inside what must originally have been the front cover (D40845, at the ‘back’ in relation to the subsequent foliation, as discussed in the sketchbook’s Introduction).
Inscribing the back cover seems to have been his usual practice with the Yorkshire sketchbooks of this time, for he does the same with the Yorkshire 1 (Tate; Turner Bequest CXLIV), Yorkshire 3 (Tate; Turner Bequest CXLVI), Yorkshire 5 (Tate; Turner Bequest CXLVIII) and Farnley sketchbooks (Tate; Turner Bequest CLIII).

David Hill
April 2009

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Inscription by Turner: Title of Sketchbook 1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-inscription-by-turner-title-of-sketchbook-r1201626, accessed 19 May 2024.