Joseph Mallord William Turner

Dunollie Castle and the Sound of Kerrera from Gallanach

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
Staffa Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 116 × 186 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D26895
Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 78 a

Catalogue entry

This sketch looks up the Sound of Kerrera to Dunollie Castle from below the Gallanach Cliffs to the south of Oban. The castle stands on a headland towards the left of the sketch with Oban Bay and a sailing boat to the right. The Gallanach Cliffs frame the view at the right, and boulders by the shore in the foreground add a sense of distance and depth to the drawing.
The composition suggests that Turner may have been familiar with William Daniell’s aquatint, Dunolly Castle, Near Oban, Argyllshire (Tate T02791) published as part of his A Voyage Found Great Britain (1814–25), as that shows the castle from the same angle with beach and boulders in the foreground. Turner, however, took sketches of the castle from a number of different viewpoints and experimented with numerous compositions, although none of these were worked up into a painting (see folio 95; D26928).

Thomas Ardill
February 2010

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