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 Linlithgow 1818

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Linlithgow’ 1818
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 50 Verso:
Linlithgow 1818
D13670
Turner Bequest CLXVII 48a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 186 mm
Inscribed in pencil ?‘Cram’ bottom left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
From the west side of Linlithgow Loch and across a small stream we look through the trees towards Linlithgow Palace and, at the far right of the page, St Michael’s Church. In the foreground is a small bridge with a single arch, which is depicted more clearly on folios 51 verso and at the bottom left of 53 verso, as well as 49 verso (D13672, D13674, D13668; CLXVII 49a, 50a, 47a). This may also be the bridge drawn on folio 33 of the Edinburgh, 1818 sketchbook (1818) (Tate D13513; Turner Bequest CLXVI 33).1
The inscription at the bottom left of the page may refer to ‘Cramond’, an area to the north-west of Edinburgh and an island in the Firth of Forth just off it. Cramond is about eleven miles away from Linlithgow, so the inscription may simply be an unrelated note by the artist.
There is a yellow mark along the top edge of the page where the yellow painted edges of the sketchbook has bled-through.

Thomas Ardill
March 2008

1
This area to the west of the loch is known as Linlithgow Bridge, though the bridge itself crosses the Avon about a kilometre to the west and was the site of the Battle of Linlithgow Bridge in 1526. There is also a bridge over the Grand Union Canal at Linlithgow, although this may not have been built by 1818 as the canal was not completed until 1822.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Linlithgow 1818 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-linlithgow-r1132215, accessed 23 September 2024.