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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Scotland 1801-10 > Edinburgh Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner View of Edinburgh from the East, with the Ruins of St Anthony's Chapel in the Foreground 1801

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View of Edinburgh from the East, with the Ruins of St Anthony's Chapel in the Foreground’ 1801
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Verso:
View of Edinburgh from the East, with the Ruins of St Anthony’s Chapel in the Foreground 1801
D02816
Turner Bequest LV 4a
Pencil on white wove paper, 195 x 127 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject is continued on folio 5 recto opposite (D02817). St Anthony’s Chapel, on an eminence in Holyrood Park, is thought to date from the fourteenth century. Its purpose is not known, though it seems likely that it served an oratory, with three bays and an upper room, presumably for a priest or hermit, who would say prayers for the souls of the departed, perhaps member of the Scottish Royal House whose palace Holyrood was.
As Turner’s quick sketch indicates, it was a fragmentary ruin in his day. It would figure prominently in one of his watercolour designs1 for Scott’s Tales of a Grandfather, engraved in 1836 (Tate impressions: T04750, T04985).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, pp.432 – 3 no.1120, reproduced, as Indianapolis Museum of Art (subsequently stolen).

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘View of Edinburgh from the East, with the Ruins of St Anthony’s Chapel in the Foreground 1801 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-view-of-edinburgh-from-the-east-with-the-ruins-of-st-r1179006, accessed 26 April 2024.