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)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed inside front flyleaf in graphite: "Sketch Book of Turner's"
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1993.30.118
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors-Sketchbooks
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
marine art | sketchbook | sketches | channel (water body component)
Associated Places:
United Kingdom | Europe | English Channel | La Manche | France | Boulogne | Folkestone
Currently On View:
On view
Exhibition History:
J.M.W. Turner: Romance & Reality (Yale Center for British Art, 2025-03-29 - 2025-07-27)The Critique of Reason : Romantic Art, 1760–1860 (Yale University Art Gallery, 2015-03-06 - 2015-07-26)An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29)An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Royal Academy of Arts, 2007-10-20 - 2008-01-27)Paul Mellon's Legacy : A Passion for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29)Behold the Sea (Yale Center for British Art, 2003-06-14 - 2003-09-07)
Publications:
John Baskett, Paul Mellon's Legacy: a Passion for British Art: Masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, p. 286, no. 94, N5220 M552 P38 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)David Blayney Brown, J. M. W. Turner : Painting Set Free, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2014, pp. 193-194, fig. 55, NJ18.T85 J1552 2014 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Franny Moyle, Turner : The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W. Turner, Penguin Books, New York, 2016, p. 416-418, NJ18 T85 M79 2016 (YCBA)Patrick Noon, A Princely Amateur : Paul Mellon and his Collection of British Drawings, , Master Drawings, vol. 38, Master Drawings Association, Inc., Fall 2000, p. 240, fig. 2, NC1 .M37 (YCBA) Another copy available as item V2329.Tony Smibert, Turner's Apprentice : a watercolour class, Thames and Hudson, 2020, p. 341, NJ18.T85 S65 2020 Oversize (YCBA)Sam Smiles, The late works of J. M. W. Turner : the artist and his critics, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, 2020, p.66, fig. 31, NJ18.t85 S655 2020 Oversize (YCBA)Joseph Mallord William Turner, Turner's last sketchbook : with a poem by Tracey Emin, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2024, entire book, NJ18 .T85 A12 2024 (YCBA)Ian Warrell, Turner's Sketchbooks, Tate Publishing, London, 2014, pp. 224-226, NJ18.T85 W378 2014 (YCBA)Ian Warrell, Turner, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2025, pp. 29, 97, 108-109, pl. 70, NJ18 .T85 W37 2025 (YCBA)Andrew Wilton, Turner in His Time, , Thames and Hudson, London, 2006, p. 236, NJ18 T85 W592 2006 OVERSIZE (YCBA)
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)