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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ardtornish Castle from the West 1831

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 51 Verso:
Ardtornish Castle from the West 1831
D26841
Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 51a
Pencil on white wove paper, 116 x 186 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Ardtornish Castle is seen in this sketch from the west. Turner made this sketch and others of the castle as he steamed down the Sound of Mull on his return journey to Oban, having visited the isles of Skye and Staffa, and having sketched the castle on his outward journey (see folio 51; D26840). One sketch in the Sound of Mull no.1 sketchbook closely resembles the current sketch, though it shows the castle in outline only (Tate D26947; Turner Bequest CCLXXIV 6a). The castle ruins stand on a headland on the Morvern side of the Sound of Mull, just to the east of Loch Aline. Behind the castle is the hill Glais Bheinn. While many of Turner’s sketches of the castles and ruins that line the Sound of Mull are hard to distinguish, the present sketches of Ardtornish are identifiable by the distinctive square ruin with a gable of higher standing wall on the south-west façade.

Thomas Ardill
March 2010

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Ardtornish Castle from the West 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-ardtornish-castle-from-the-west-r1135198, accessed 28 March 2024.