J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Scotland 1818-20 > Edinburgh, 1818, Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner On the North Side of the Firth of Forth 1818

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘On the North Side of the Firth of Forth’ 1818
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 47 Verso:
On the North Side of the Firth of Forth 1818
D13542
Turner Bequest CLXVI 47a
Pencil on white wove paper, 90 x 112 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There are two views of the coast along the Firth of Forth on this page. Taking up the bottom two-thirds of the page and continuing on folio 48 (D13543) is a harbour with a pavilion-shaped structure. Several boats are shown moored nearby and there is a small crowd of people and horses along the waterside presumably loading or unloading the boats. At the right of the drawing (folio 48) is what looks like the fortified island of Inchgarvie. If Finberg is right in describing this as ‘On the North Side of the Firth of Forth’ then the harbour must, as David Wallace-Hadrill has suggested, be North Queensferry.1 At the top of the page and extending slightly to folio 48 is a sketch of a town on the banks of the Forth. This may perhaps be North or South Queensferry.

Thomas Ardill
January 2008

1
Finberg 1909, I, p.483, CLXVI 47a; David Wallace-Hadrill, unpublished notes, [circa 1989–94], Tate catalogue files.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘On the North Side of the Firth of Forth 1818 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2008, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-on-the-north-side-of-the-firth-of-forth-r1132087, accessed 25 April 2024.