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 > Watercolours Derived from the 1801 ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Doune Castle c.1801-4

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Doune Castle’ c.1801-4
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Doune Castle c.1801–4
D08281
Turner Bequest CXXI Y
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 667 x 845 mm
Watermark ‘J Whatman 1801’
Blind–stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘CXXI.Y’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXI – Y’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This large colour study has not been identified hitherto. It is based on two drawings in the Scotch Lakes sketchbook (Tate D03199–D03202; Turner Bequest LVI 146a–147, 147a–148). Both show the whole of this view, though the bridge over the River Teith appears only in the second of those sketches. In that drawing the castle appears only in general outline. It is rendered in greater detail in the first, where the identification is plain, as is the relationship between castle and bridge.
Doune is about four miles west of Dunblane, and Turner drew it on his way from there to Stirling during his tour of Scotland in 1801. Finberg describes this colour study as ‘unfinished’,1 but it may have been made in preparation for a large watercolour, comparable to the 1804 view of Edinburgh from Caulton–hill (Tate D03639; Turner Bequest LX H).2 The work was never executed.
1
See Finberg 1909, I, p.335.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.339 no.348, pl.56.
Verso:
Blank

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Doune Castle c.1801–4 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-doune-castle-r1179845, accessed 25 April 2024.