'The Firth of Forth', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

The Firth of Forth

From Edinburgh, 1818, Sketchbook

Turner Bequest CLXVI

Date 1818

MediumGraphite on paper

Dimensionssupport: 90 x 112 mm

Collection

Tate

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

Reference

D13554

Turner Bequest CLXVI 53 a

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

Turner's sketchbooks

View this artwork in the Edinburgh, 1818, Sketchbook

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Folio 53 Verso:

The Firth of Forth 1818

D13554
Turner Bequest CLXVI 53a

Pencil on white wove paper, 90 x 112 mm

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

References

This double-page sketch (continued on folio 54; D13555) shows the same view along the Firth of Forth as folios 47 verso–48 (D13542–D13543) where a group of people stand on a beach by a domed pavilion and a twin-gabled building. Finberg suggested the scene was on the ‘north side of the Firth of Forth’,1 and David Wallace-Hadrill proposed that this might be North Queensferry, in which case the view is looking east.2 There are views of the Firth of Forth throughout this sketchbook covering the area around Dunbar and North Berwick, and between Leith and Blackness Castle on the southern banks, and around North Queensferry and Rosyth Castle on the Fife banks (see Edinburgh, 1818 sketchbook Introduction).

Thomas Ardill
April 2008

Finberg 1909, I, p.483, CLXVI 53a.

David Wallace-Hadrill, unpublished notes, [circa 1989–94], Tate catalogue files.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.