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 Four Sketches of Stirling Castle from King's Park 1834

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Four Sketches of Stirling Castle from King's Park’ 1834
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 49 Verso:
Four Sketches of Stirling Castle from King’s Park 1834
D26352
Turner Bequest CCLXIX 49a
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 190 x 113 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Henry Crawford described these sketches, drawn with the book turned to the right, as ‘four rough structural sketches of the [Stirling] Castle buildings in outline’, and points out that the top sketch includes ‘a few rough circles depicting the King’s Knot.’1 This is an octagonal stepped mound in King’s Park to the south-west of the castle that by the nineteenth century had already been out of use as a garden for a century and had therefore become indistinct.2 This and the other three sketches of the castle were therefore made from King’s Park to the south-west of the castle. The sketch at the bottom of the page is a close-up study of the south-east corner of the castle. This is the first page in a series of sketches of the castle from the south: folios 50–51 verso (D26353–D26356). See folio 46 verso (D26342) for a full list of Turner’s sketches of Stirling.

Thomas Ardill
October 2010

1
Crawford 1936, p.27.
2
‘Stirling, King’s Knot: Archaeological Notes’, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, accessed 15 October 2010, < http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/46256/details/stirling+king+s+knot/ >.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Four Sketches of Stirling Castle from King’s Park 1834 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 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-four-sketches-of-stirling-castle-from-kings-park-r1136282, accessed 18 September 2024.