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 Sketches of Shorelines around the Moray Firth and perhaps elsewhere 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sketches of Shorelines around the Moray Firth and perhaps elsewhere’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 13 Recto:
Sketches of Shorelines around the Moray Firth and perhaps elsewhere 1831
D27067
Turner Bequest CCLXXVII 13
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 104 x 163 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘2’ top left, ‘1’ upper-centre, ‘3’ centre left, ‘Ardules Lo’ lower centre, ?‘Kessock Fe’ inverted beneath that, ‘4’ lower left inverted, ‘5’ bottom left inverted, ‘coll’ bottom centre inverted
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘13’ bottom left descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXVII 13’ bottom left descending
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The four sketches of coastlines on this page are presumably connected as Turner has numbered them 1–5. The logic of Turner’s order – with ‘1’ at the upper-centre of the page, ‘2’ above it, ‘3’ beneath, and ‘4’ and ‘5’ inverted at the bottom of the page – is not evident. The identification of the sketches is also unknown, although David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan have made a number of suggestions,1 and there are further possibilities.
Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan suggest that sketch ‘2’, at the top of the page, may be Fort George as seen from the Black Isle (as in folio 12 verso; D27066). With this in mind, the sketch beneath may show the bay at Rosemarkie (see folio 62; D27126). However, the hill above the bay and the amount of shipping suggests that this may be North Kessock with Ord Hill (see folio 6; D27054), or, as Carolan suggests, either ‘Dingwall’, ‘Cromarty’ or ‘Evanton’. Sketch ‘3’ may be inscribed ‘Ardullie Lo’, referring to Ardullie Lodge, a property near Evanton owned by Turner’s friend and patron, H.A.J. Munro of Novar, who he visited while in Scotland. Wallace-Hadrill suggests that sketch ‘4’, at the bottom of the page, may be inscribed ‘Kessock Fe[rry]’, though this is likely to be a view from North Kessock (perhaps up Beauly Firth), rather than of the ferry landing (see folio 9 verso; D27061). At the fore-edge of the page is a sketch inscribed ‘5’ and ‘coll’ (or ‘cold’), which depicts either a shoreline or a band of cloud.

Thomas Ardill
April 2010

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘CCLXXVII Inverness Checklist’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [unpaginated].

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Sketches of Shorelines around the Moray Firth and perhaps elsewhere 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-sketches-of-shorelines-around-the-moray-firth-and-perhaps-r1135433, accessed 19 April 2024.