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 Bishop's House and Elgin Cathedral 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Bishop's House and Elgin Cathedral’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 132 Verso:
Bishop’s House and Elgin Cathedral 1831
D27204
Turner Bequest CCLXXVII 132a
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 104 x 163 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The partially ruined building in the foreground of this sketch has been identified by David Wallace-Hadrill as the Precentor’s of Elgin Cathedral, although it is often known as the Bishop’s House.1 The house is seen from the north, with the outline of the two towers at the western end of Elgin Cathedral rising above it. The cathedral’s octagonal chapter house can be seen at the left, with part of the east end where there are the remains of a rose window. At the right of the page the sketch is overlaid with other sketches of architectural details.
There is another sketch of the Manse on folio 133 (D270205), and it is seen in a sketch of the cathedral on folio 24 verso (D27080). For references to all of Turner’s sketches of Elgin, see folio 139 (D27215).

Thomas Ardill
May 2010

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

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Bishop’s House and Elgin Cathedral 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 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-bishops-house-and-elgin-cathedral-r1135570, accessed 20 April 2024.