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 Connel Ferry, Loch Etive Looking East 1831

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Connel Ferry, Loch Etive Looking East’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 82 Recto:
Connel Ferry, Loch Etive Looking East 1831
D26902
Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 82
Pencil on white wove paper, 116 x 186 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Connel Ferry’ lower centre right
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘82’ top left running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXIII 82’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
‘Connel Ferry’, inscribed by Turner on this page, is a village on the southern shore of Loch Etive where the loch narrows towards Loch Lorne (see folio 95 verso; D26929). It is known for the rapids that occur on the loch, called the Falls of Lora by Ossian, which is probably what interested Turner about the site. He may have been alerted to this by The Steamboat Companion, a copy of which he is thought to have consulted.1 The view is from a headland just to the west of Connel Ferry (see folio 81 verso; D26901) and looks east along the loch to the rapids, with the mountains of Beinn Mheadhonach and Beinn Duirinnis on the left and Ben Cruachan on the right.
Sketches looking north and west on folio 84 verso (D26907) were made from around this point where Turner caught his first glimpse of Dunstaffnage Castle.

Thomas Ardill
January 2010

1
James Lumsden and Son, Lumsden and Son’s Steamboat Companion; or Stranger’s Guide to the Western Isles and Highlands of Scotland, Glasgow 1839, p.130; quoted in Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan 1991, p.23.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Connel Ferry, Loch Etive Looking East 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 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-connel-ferry-loch-etive-looking-east-r1135259, accessed 25 April 2024.