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 Arklet Falls, Inversnaid; Knock Castle, Skye, and a Coastline 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Arklet Falls, Inversnaid; Knock Castle, Skye, and a Coastline’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 92 Verso:
Arklet Falls, Inversnaid; Knock Castle, Skye, and a Coastline 1831
D26618
Turner Bequest CCLXX 92a
Pencil on white wove paper, 125 x 201 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Knock’ bottom left running vertically, and a long inscription at the top of the page which is transcribed in the main entry
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The inscription at the top of the page is written out in two columns like poetry and seems to give directions or to describe a place, perhaps a loch. The handwriting seems to match the carefully written address of Hugh Munro of Novar opposite this page on the inside back cover of this sketchbook (D41083); it may not be in Turner’s own hand. The first column is transcribed below:
 Raid more to Portlake
 [...]ande [?]guide [...] [?]guide
 Kir tir to show well
 Loch 9 mile
 Road more to Port Which is the road
The second column reads:
 Road more to Port Which is the road
 Stand ye well good health
 Kir tir to show and what of your call
 Loch or co of mile how far
The sketch of a waterfall at the centre of this page has been identified as the Arklet Falls where the Arklet water flows into Loch Lomond at Inversnaid, which is depicted on the reverse of this page (folio 92; D26617).1 A small cottage sits to the left of the waterfall.
Along the left-hand edge of the page, drawn with the sketchbook turned to the right, is a sketch of Knock Castle (also called Castle Camus) inscribed ‘Knock’.2 The view is probably from the north. There are further sketches of the castle on folios 78, 83 and 86 (D26590, D26599, D26605). Along the right-hand edge of the page, drawn with the sketchbook turned to the right, is a sketch of a hill shore as seen from a loch or the sea. If this is connected to either of the other sketches on the page then it is likely to be either Loch Lomond or Skye.

Thomas Ardill
June 2010

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner Round the Clyde and in Islay – 1831’, 1991, folio 7.
2
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner on the Isle of Skye 1831’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [folio 12].

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Arklet Falls, Inversnaid; Knock Castle, Skye, and a Coastline 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2010, 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-arklet-falls-inversnaid-knock-castle-skye-and-a-coastline-r1135052, accessed 23 April 2024.