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

Looking north-west, as Turner’s inscription ‘NW’ indicates, this is a view along the Pass of Leny, from just west of the hamlet of Kilmahog near Callander. The Old Military Road that runs through the pass, on which Turner was walking, is shown in the foreground with the River Leny to the left. Between the feet of two lower hills at the left and right is the mountain of Ben Ledi.

At the top right of the page is a separate boxed-off thumbnail sketch which again depicts a mountain pass, this time with the sun’s orb above the mountain at the top of the sketch. This is probably also a view north-west along the pass. Although it is small, it is more composed than the main sketch, with the hill at the left creating a strong diagonal compositional structure. Turner was perhaps experimenting with an imagined painting, rather than recording topography in this sketch.

These drawings belong to a series of mountain views that David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan identified as likely to have been made in the Pass of Leny, to the west of Callander: folios 34–37 (D26692, D26691, D26690, D26689, D26698, D26697, D26687; CCLXXII 14, 14a, 13a, 13, 17a, 17, 11a).1

For references to further sketches of the Pass of Leny and other sites nearby, see folio 33 (D26741; CCLXXII 39a).