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 Nelson's Monument, Calton Hill; and Roslin Chapel 1818

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Nelson's Monument, Calton Hill; and Roslin Chapel’ 1818
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 59 Verso:
Nelson’s Monument, Calton Hill; and Roslin Chapel 1818
D13564
Turner Bequest CLXVI 59a
Pencil on white wove paper, 90 x 112 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page divided from the top left to bottom right by a rough diagonal line, this page has been used for two sketches. The top shows Nelson’s Monument, newly erected on Calton Hill in Edinburgh and sketched by Turner numerous times in the Bass Rock and Edinburgh sketchbook (see Bass Rock and Edinburgh sketchbook Introduction and folio 59 in this sketchbook; D13429). To the right of the structure Turner has made three sketches of details of the tower’s design.
Faint lines that may represent the outlines of foreground hills extend to the opposite page (folio 60; D13565), where there is a sketch of Calton Gaol on Calton Hill which continues slightly to the lower right of the present page. Another sketch in the Bass Rock and Edinburgh sketchbook (folio 60 verso; D13432) shows a similar view of Nelson’s Monument and of Regent’s Road, and was presumably made on the same occasion as the present sketch.
The drawing at the bottom of the page shows Roslin Castle with Roslin Chapel to the right and bears a resemblance to several sketches in this book (folios 27a and 48 verso–49; D13502 and D13544–D13545), and to a sketch in the Scotch Antiquities sketchbook from the north-west (Tate D13717; Turner Bequest CLXVII 72a).

Thomas Ardill
January 2008

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Nelson’s Monument, Calton Hill; and Roslin Chapel 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-nelsons-monument-calton-hill-and-roslin-chapel-r1132109, accessed 19 April 2024.