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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Hermitage Castle, Lidderdale 1831

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 64 Recto:
Hermitage Castle, Lidderdale 1831
D25887
Turner Bequest CCLXVI 64
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 187 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Con’ centre left
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘64’ top right and ‘342’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXVI 64’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is one of several sketches of Hermitage Castle from the south-east. The view is similar to folio 63 verso (D25886), though it brings us closer to the castle and to the Hermitage Water. There is a detailed drawing of the castle from this angle on folio 64 verso (D25888), which more clearly demonstrates the damage to the eastern elevation.
There are sketches of the castle on folios 63 verso–67 and 68 verso (D25886–D25893, D25896). Despite Finberg’s suggestion that the present page was the basis for Turner’s illustration of Hermitage Castle circa 1832 (watercolour, private collection) for Sir Walter Scott’s Poetical Works,1 the work was clearly based on the sketch on folio 67.

Thomas Ardill
September 2009

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.428 no.1077.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Hermitage Castle, Lidderdale 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2009, 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-hermitage-castle-lidderdale-r1134254, accessed 29 March 2024.