Joseph Mallord William Turner

Aros Castle, Sound of Mull

1831

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Stirling and the West Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 125 × 201 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D26529
Turner Bequest CCLXX 47 a

Catalogue entry

At the top of this page is a sketch of a ruin on a shore which David Wallace-Hadrill identified as Aros Castle on the shore of Mull as seen from the Sound of Mull.1 The ruin closely resembles a sketch on folio 42 verso (D26519) which Turner inscribed ‘Arros’, confirming the identification. Turner made further sketches of the castle in the Sound of Mull No.1 (Tate D26954; Turner Bequest CCLXXIV 10a) and the Staffa sketchbooks (Tate D26839; Turner Bequest CCLXXII 50a), see folio 42 verso of this sketchbook for further details.

The other sketches on the present page are likely to have been made at the same time as the Aros sketch and are therefore likely to be views of the Sound of Mull. Across the centre of the page may be a view north up the Sound from near Salen, with a sketch of a hill on the coast of Mull at the bottom left of the page.

Thomas Ardill
June 2010

David Wallace-Hadrill, ‘CCLXX “Stirling” Checklist’, [circa 1990], Tate catalogue files.

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