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

Turner did not venture beyond the lowlands during this 1818 tour of Scotland, but did manage to drawn Scottish mountains from a distance. On this page Turner has sketched three panoramas of distant mountain ranges, one of which he has labelled ‘Grampians’, parts of which would have been visible to the north. Although it is possible that they were all made from different places, with the artist returning to this page in the sketchbook each time he saw a range that he wished to draw, it is more likely that the three sketches were made from the same place with the artist turning on the spot for each view; until the other two inscriptions are deciphered we cannot be certain. Turner also made a sketch of the Pentland Hills (Scotch Antiquities sketchbook Tate D13737, D40916; Turner Bequest 82a and inside back cover), and the Cheviot Hills (Edinburgh, 1818 sketchbook Tate D13512; Turner Bequest CLXVI 32a) during this tour, and the Bathgate Hills are visible behind many of his sketches of Linlithgow (for example in the Scotch Antiquities sketchbook, Tate D13680; Turner Bequest CLXVII 53a).