Joseph Mallord William Turner

Edinburgh Castle from the Slopes of Arthur’s Seat

1834

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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 Edinburgh Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 113 × 190 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D26419
Turner Bequest CCLXIX 83 a

Catalogue entry

Drawn with the sketchbook inverted across this page and folio 84 (D26420) is a view towards Edinburgh from the northern slopes of Arthur’s Seat. It is one of a sequence of similar views of the city drawn on 1 October in preparation for an illustration to Sir Water Scott’s Prose Works: see folio 89 verso (D26431).
Very little of the city is actually depicted in this rather diagrammatical sketch. Edinburgh Castle perched on Castle Rock, however, is recognisable at the centre of the present page as is the open-crown spire of St Giles’s Cathedral to the right. The gothic spire of the Tron Kirk is indicated very roughly to the right of this.

Thomas Ardill
November 2010

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