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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1834 > Stirling and Edinburgh Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Falls of Clyde: Steps Below Corra Castle 1834

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Falls of Clyde: Steps Below Corra Castle’ 1834
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 12 Verso:
Falls of Clyde: Steps Below Corra Castle 1834
D26282
Turner Bequest CCLXIX 12a
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 113 x 190 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch has been identified as showing the steps down to the natural amphitheatre below Corra Linn waterfall from Corra Castle on the northern bank of the River Clyde.1 Lady Mary Rose had the broad steps cut into the rock around 1817.2 The figure climbing up the steps may be John Gilbert Lockhart who reported in his diary that he took Turner to Craignethan Castle on 19 September 1834, and so may also have accompanied him to the Falls of the Clyde the previous day; see Tour of Scotland for Scott’s Prose Works 1834 Tour Introduction. For further sketches of the Falls of Clyde see folio 1 verso (D26260).

Thomas Ardill
February 2011

1
Identified by Cherry Bowen, Falls of Clyde Visitor Centre, in correspondence with the author 1 November 2010.
2
‘Corra Linn, Bonnington Pavilion, Lanark’, British Listed Buildings, updated 2010, accessed 29 September 2010, < http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/sc-13065-corra-linn-bonnington-pavilion-lanark>.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Falls of Clyde: Steps Below Corra Castle 1834 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2011, 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-falls-of-clyde-steps-below-corra-castle-r1136212, accessed 19 April 2024.