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 > Scotch Antiquities Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dunbar Castle 1818

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dunbar Castle’ 1818
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 30 Recto:
Dunbar Castle 1818
D13632
Turner Bequest CLXVII 29
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 186 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Boats | Fishing [...]’ bottom left
Inscribed in blue ink ‘29’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CLXVII 29’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Standing just to the east of Dunbar Castle, Turner has sketched the ruins of the old gateway (centre) and Keep (right) which sit on a rocky promontory which falls away into the sea at the right. The view is very similar to the drawing on the previous page (folio 29; D13631; CLXVII 28). At the left inscriptions refer to ‘Boats’ and ‘fishing’ and there is a bank where small boats may have been pulled ashore, although the rocks under the water around the castle would be treacherous to those unfamiliar with the harbour. There follows two double-page sketches of the castle from the east (folios 30 verso–31 and 33 verso–34; D13633–D13634 and D13639–D13640; CLXVII 29a–30 and 31c–32), which formed the template of Turner’s Provincial Antiquities: Dunbar, circa 1823 (private collection).1
There is a pale pink smudge next to Finberg’s number, the remains of Ruskin’s red ink numbering.

Thomas Ardill
February 2008

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.426 no.1066.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Dunbar Castle 1818 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-dunbar-castle-r1132180, accessed 20 April 2024.