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

Continued from folio 44 (D13657; CLXVII 42) is a sketch of St Michael’s Church, Linlithgow from the south-east. On the present page is the foreshortened south side of the church with the impressive crown spire – similar in design to the spire of St Giles’s Cathedral in Edinburgh (see Scotch Lakes sketchbook, 1801, Tate D02942–D02943; Turner Bequest LVI 13a–14, and compare to St Giles’s, folio 40 in this sketchbook; Tate D13649; Turner Bequest CLXVII 38). The spire had been damaged in a storm in 1768 when it lost its weathercock, and two years after Turner made this sketch it was found to be in danger of collapse and was removed in 1821 – the year that Turner made his watercolour of Linlithgow Palace (Manchester City Art Galleries),1 based on sketches from this tour. The church now has a modern aluminium crown, erected in 1964. The sketch continues on folio 44 where the apse at the east of the church is shown along with the eastern façade of Linlithgow Palace.

There is a blue ink stain (matching the colour of Finberg’s blue ink inscription) at the centre top of the page which has bled through from the other side of the page.