Sketchbook bound in red calf with marbled end papers, comprising 88 leaves with 74 watercolors and 26 graphite sketches on medium, slightly textured, white wove paper
Dimensions:
Binding: 4 inches (10.2 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1993.30.118
Gallery Label:
This modest notebook is thought to be Turner’s last intact sketchbook. A compulsive draftsman, he filled more than three hundred such volumes. This particular example was probably produced during the summer of 1845, when Turner traveled between the south coast of England and northern France. It contains a proliferation of highly abbreviated but expressive watercolor and pencil studies. Skies, sunsets, and water are rendered in deft outline or flashes of brilliant color. Their rapid execution testifies to Turner’s extraordinary skill in reducing complex forms to their simplest components. Standing in as a kind of shorthand for the real views he observed, these drawings provide vivid insight into his working methods. Gallery label for J. M. W. Turner: Romance and Reality (Yale Center for British Art, March - 29, 2025 - July 27, 2025)
