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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inverness: Tollbooth and Old High Kirk 1831

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inverness: Tollbooth and Old High Kirk’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 5 Recto:
Inverness: Tollbooth and Old High Kirk 1831
D27052
Turner Bequest CCLXXVII 5
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 104 x 163 mm
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘5’ bottom left descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXVII 5’ bottom left descending
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing or drawings on this page poses a problem. Turner appears to have drawn a view of a town with two steeples and a river at the right. If the steeples have been identified correctly as the Tollbooth at the left and the Old High Church (or Kirk) of Inverness at the right,1 then this is a view of Inverness looking north from somewhere around Castle Hill. However, the River Ness is on the wrong side (it should be to the left). There may therefore be two overlapping sketches. One depicts the two steeples from the south, and another looks north up the River Ness towards the Black Isle. At the bottom of the page is a sketch of two figures who lean forwards over the water. Turner incorporated these two figures in his watercolour, Inverness circa 1833 (Inverness Museum and Art Gallery, The Highland Council),2 the composition of which was based on the sketch on folio 2 (D27047).

Thomas Ardill
April 2010

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Sketchbook CCLXXVII Inverness’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [unpaginated].
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, pp.433–4 no.1128.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Inverness: Tollbooth and Old High Kirk 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-inverness-tollbooth-and-old-high-kirk-r1135418, accessed 25 April 2024.