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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Sheets Associated with the 1831 Tour of ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Castle Craig on the Cromarty Firth, Scotland 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Castle Craig on the Cromarty Firth, Scotland’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Castle Craig on the Cromarty Firth, Scotland 1831
D34845
Turner Bequest CCCXLIV d 359
Pencil on off-white lined paper, 163 x 206 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ?‘mid’ upper-right
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘359’ bottom-right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLIV 359’ bottom-right
Blindstamped with the Turner Bequest stamp upper centre-right and lower centre-right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The tower sketched on this page has been identified as Castle Craig on the southern shore of the Cromarty Firth, opposite Novar House and the village of Evanton.1 Turner made the sketches while staying with Hugh Munro at Novar House (see Tate D34797; Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 330). Across the centre of the page is a view of the tower as seen from a distance of about a mile across the Cromarty Firth, with the near shore in the foreground. The tower is seen from closer to in the top sketch, presumably from a boat on the water.
Turner made further sketches of Novar House on another loose sheet of paper: Tate D34858 (Turner Bequest CCCXLIV d 370 verso).
1
Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan 1994, p.15 reproduced.
Verso:
Blank but for a few scribbles at the upper right.

Thomas Ardill
May 2010

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Castle Craig on the Cromarty Firth, Scotland 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-castle-craig-on-the-cromarty-firth-scotland-r1135607, accessed 25 April 2024.