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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Loch Long Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dumbarton Rock 1831

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dumbarton Rock’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Verso:
Dumbarton Rock 1831
D26622
Turner Bequest CCLXXI 2a
Pencil on off-white laid writing paper, 101 x 158 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXI – 2a’ top left descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned to the right is a drawing of Dumbarton Rock as seen from the River Clyde to the south. Although there is limited detail in the sketch, the outline of the rock is carefully delineated, as is the Governor’s House which sits on a low plateau at its southern end. To the left of the church is the mouth of the River Leven. The spire, presumably of Dumbarton Riverside Parish Church, can be seen at this point. At the top right of the page is a sketch of Dumbarton Bridge, as seen in the sketch on folio 2 (D26621) and in Turner’s watercolour of the subject: Dumbarton Castle and River Leven circa 1833 (whereabouts unknown);1 the bridge is also shown in a sketch of 1801 (Tate D02980; Turner Bequest LVI 35 a).
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan suggest that Turner made the sketch as he steamed along the River Clyde from Bowling, on his way to the River Leven and onto Loch Long.2

Thomas Ardill
October 2009

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.430 no.1095.
2
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner Round the Clyde and in Islay – 1831’, 1991, Tate catalogue files, folio 2.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Dumbarton Rock 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-r1135059, accessed 26 April 2024.