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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Borthwick Castle 1818

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 52 Recto:
Borthwick Castle 1818
D13551
Turner Bequest CLXVI 52
Pencil on white wove paper, 90 x 112 mm
Stamped in black ‘CLXVI 52’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is one of a number of similar view of Borthwick Castle from the north-west that Turner made in preparation for his illustration of the subject for Scott’s Provincial Antiquities (see folio 28; D13503). In this version the castle is very roughly depicted, although Turner has taken care to indicate its twin-towered western façade. As with several other sketches, though not the final watercolour – Borthwick Castle, 1818 (watercolour, Indianapolis Museum of Art) –1 the castle is here framed by trees on both sides with the River Gore in the foreground. Turner may have reached Borthwick via Dalkeith which is depicted on the previous page.

Thomas Ardill
April 2008

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.426 no.1060.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Borthwick Castle 1818 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-borthwick-castle-r1132096, accessed 19 September 2024.