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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Sound of Mull (?) No. 2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Cuillins of Skye from the Mouth of Loch nan Ceall 1831

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Cuillins of Skye from the Mouth of Loch nan Ceall’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 5 Recto:
The Cuillins of Skye from the Mouth of Loch nan Ceall 1831
D26963
Turner Bequest CCLXXV 5
Pencil on white wove paper, 91 x 153 mm
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘5’ top right running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXV – 5’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Folios 5, 6 and 6 verso (D26963, D26964, D26965) contain sketches that have all been identified as the Cuillin Mountains on Skye, as seen from around Arisaig, where Turner’s steamboat stopped before continuing to Skye where he landed at Advasar.1 The first sketch at the top of the page shows the distinctive jagged peaks of the Cuillins, though they are rather out of context except for the rocks at the right of the sketch, which suggest that the view may be from the mouth of Loch nan Ceall. The sketch beneath is certainly from the mouth of Loch nan Ceall, as there are crags in the foreground. The Black Cuillins at the south of Skye are seen at the left (represented in a generalised form as a jagged outline), while the more rounded Red Cuillins at the north of the island are at the right.
The fore-edge and right-hand edge of this page are rather rough. While this could be a result of damage, the fact that the rest of the pages in this sketchbook have a cleaner edge suggests that the pages may always have been like this, having been roughly cut before they were bound in the sketchbook.

Thomas Ardill
March 2010

1
Identified by David Wallace–Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner on the Isle of Skye 1831’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [folio 8].

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘The Cuillins of Skye from the Mouth of Loch nan Ceall 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-the-cuillins-of-skye-from-the-mouth-of-loch-nan-ceall-r1135304, accessed 24 April 2024.