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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Stirling and the West Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dumbarton Rock; and a Sketch of the Cuillins from Ord on Skye 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dumbarton Rock; and a Sketch of the Cuillins from Ord on Skye’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 82 Verso:
Dumbarton Rock; and a Sketch of the Cuillins from Ord on Skye 1831
D26598
Turner Bequest CCLXX 82a
Pencil on white wove paper, 125 x 201 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘skye’ top left running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned to the left, this view of Dumbarton Rock shows the northern end of the rock from a boat in the River Leven. At the left above the castle ramparts are the Magazine, and to the right of this is the French prison. Turner drew these buildings again above this sketch. There are further sketches of the castle on folios 67, 71 verso and 72 (D26568, D26577, D26578) and in the Loch Long sketchbook (inside front cover; Tate D41131).
At the top of the page is a sketch, inscribed ‘Skye’, which has been identified as a view from Ord across Loch Eishort towards the Cuillins mountain range.1 The rounded mountain at the right may be Beinn na Caillich, with the jagged Black Cuillins to the left. Turner reached Ord from the footpath that crosses the Sleat peninsula from just north of Knock Bay, after having sketched Knock Castle (folio 78; D26590). From here he travelled south to Tokavaig where he sketched Dun Sgathaich – also called Dun Scaith and other variations – (see folio 87 verso; D26608), and then crossed Loch Eishort and Slapin to Elgol and onto Loch Coruisk.2

Thomas Ardill
October 2009

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner on the Isle of Skye 1831’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [folio 13].
2
Ibid.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Dumbarton Rock; and a Sketch of the Cuillins from Ord on Skye 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 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-dumbarton-rock-and-a-sketch-of-the-cuillins-from-ord-on-skye-r1135032, accessed 19 April 2024.