Turner’s prints were a major achievement of the C19th - combining art, craft, technology and
commerce. This evolving website hosts an illustrated catalogue raisonnée of his prints. Turner produced around 750 prints in his lifetime and more
appeared later, going through many editions and changes of state. Refining the early C20th catalogues can no
longer be the work of single scholar, so this will be developed as an updateable
database where users can contribute ideas, data and images. The starting point of this database are the
catalogues prepared by Rawlinson and Finberg, gradually augmented by
subsequent scholarship.
Go to the catalogue to explore the individual prints and the stages by which these were achieved. Most of these prints are currently described by a first state impression. Whenever the states of prints have been explored in depth, Rawlinson's list and his assignments have had to be revised, e.g: R.001-015A the Copper-plate magazine series; R.088-127 Southern Coast; R.177 Wycliffe; R.317a
Ehrenbreitstein; and R.779 Scarborough.
Individual pages for each print explore its history in more depth. Various states of those print are illustrated and can be compared at high resolution. Users are able to identify the differences between states by comparing the detailed images.