Joseph Mallord William Turner

Craigmillar Castle; and a View of Kelso

1831

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Abbotsford Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 113 × 185 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D25969
Turner Bequest CCLXVII 23 a

Catalogue entry

The two sketches on this page, one drawn with the book in its usual orientation and the other inverted, are of different places. The first sketch to be made was of Kelso on 10 August 1831.1 This view is from the south-west across the River Tweed. Kelso Abbey is drawn in faint outline towards the right of the sketch with Kelso Bridge to its right. At the centre of the page is the steeple of the Town House. (For more information on Turner’s visit to Kelso see folio 19 verso; D25962; CCLXVII 19a).

Five days later Turner used the blank space at the top of the page to make a sketch of Craigmillar Castle with the book inverted. This view is from the north of the castle, see folio 23 (D25968; CCLXVII 23) for more information on this visit to Craigmillar.

Thomas Ardill
September 2009

Robert Cadell, ‘Abbotsford Diary’, Wednesday 10 August 1831, National Library of Scotland, MS Acc.5188, Box 1, folio 111; transcribed in Gerald E. Finley, ‘J.M.W. Turner and Sir Walter Scott: Iconography of a Tour’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol.31, 1972, p.384.

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