'Distant Mountains', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Distant Mountains

From Stirling and the West Sketchbook

Turner Bequest CCLXX

Date 1831

MediumGraphite on paper

Dimensionssupport: 125 x 201 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Reference

D26454

Turner Bequest CCLXX 10

View this artwork by appointment, at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms

Turner's sketchbooks

View this artwork in the Stirling and the West Sketchbook

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Folio 10 Recto:

Distant Mountains 1831

D26454
Turner Bequest CCLXX 10

Pencil on white wove paper, 125 x 201 mm
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘10’ top right running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXX – 10’ top right running vertically

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

References

The profile of this mountain is recognisable as Ben Lomond, and as David Wallace-Hadrill has suggested, the view is likely to be from near Luss on the western shore of Loch Lomond.1 As the village is not visible at the left of the sketch, it is likely that Turner made the view shortly after leaving Luss during a steamboat tour of the loch and others nearby (see folio 23; D26480).

See folio 23 for further references to sketches of Loch Lomond, and see the Tour of Scotland for Scott’s Poetical Works 1831 Tour Introduction for information about Turner’s route around the Scottish lakes.

Thomas Ardill
October 2009

David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘CCLXX “Stirling” Checklist’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files.

Read this catalogue entry in full

This catalogue entry is part of: David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, December 2012.