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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner Gylen Castle and Crags, Kerrera from the West 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Gylen Castle and Crags, Kerrera from the West’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 64 Verso:
Gylen Castle and Crags, Kerrera from the West 1831
D26867
Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 64a
Pencil on white wove paper, 116 x 186 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Dunsain’ top right and again lower centre right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is one of the sketches of Gylen Castle that Turner made from the west: folios 63 verso–67 verso (D26865–D26873). The tower is therefore seen from the west across the bay of Port a’ Chaisteil, with the crags to the west of the bay in the foreground.
An inscription, written twice by Turner at the top and lower left of the page, has puzzled scholars. Finberg read the word as ‘Dunsain’,1 which Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan have agreed with,2 suggesting that the word somehow refers to ‘Doun Donachy’, or Duncan’s Fort, which is marked on Blaeu’s 1654 map of the island at this point.3 Duncan’s Fort, however, may simply refer to Gylen Castle which was built by Duncan MacDougal of Dunollie. Therefore, it is possible that Turner’s inscription simply says ‘Duncain’, or some other variation on the name. Whether he got the word from a map or guide is not known.
See folio 73 verso (D26885; CCLXXIII 73a) for further details about Turner’s visit to Gylen Castle.

Thomas Ardill
February 2010

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.877.
2
Janet Carolan suggested in a letter to David Wallace-Hadrill that the word could read ‘Dunollie’, and therefore refer to the castle on the Argyll mainland near Oban (Carolan to Wallace-Hadrill, 6 March 1990), but the authors stuck with ‘Dunsain’ in their published article (Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan 1991, p.28).
3
Joan Blaeu, Atlas novus, vol.V, 1654; Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan 1991, p.28.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Gylen Castle and Crags, Kerrera from the West 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-gylen-castle-and-crags-kerrera-from-the-west-r1135224, accessed 20 September 2024.