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 Lauriston Castle and the Firth of Forth 1818

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lauriston Castle and the Firth of Forth’ 1818
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 61 Verso:
Lauriston Castle and the Firth of Forth 1818
D13568
Turner Bequest CLXVI 61a
Pencil on white wove paper, 90 x 112 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ?‘seal’ lower centre right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Over two pages Turner has sketched a view north across the Firth of Forth towards Fife, with Lauriston Castle on the left. The castle was built in the 1590s as a tower house, and Turner’s drawing shows it as it was before its extension by William Burn in the 1820s for the then owner Thomas Allen. Behind the castle about half a mile to the north is the Firth of Forth with the north bank at Fife. Crammond Island can be seen on this page a mile and a half to the north, and over on folio 62 (D13569) is Inchkeith nearly seven miles to the north-east.
On folio 62, just above Finberg’s stamp, drawn with the sketchbook inverted, is a tiny sketch of a building that may be Roslin Chapel.

Thomas Ardill
January 2008

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Lauriston Castle and 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-lauriston-castle-and-the-firth-of-forth-r1132113, accessed 20 April 2024.