Joseph Mallord William Turner

Loch Etive: Looking North to Achnaba Hill; and Looking West to Dunstaffnage Castle

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
D26907
Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 84 a

Catalogue entry

The two sketches on this page have both been identified as Loch Etive.1 They were made as Turner travelled west along the southern shore of the Loch from Taynuilt (folio 84; D26906) towards Dunstaffnage Castle. The top sketch looks north across the loch at the stratified slope of the hill above Achnaba, from the road on the opposite shore. The inscriptions beneath the sketch have been read as ‘Tay[nuilt]’ and ‘Aird’ Bay, which Turner had passed through, though he was now over four miles away.
Dunstaffnage Castle came into view as he continued west on the approach to Connel Ferry (folio 82; D26902). It is shown towards the left of the second sketch across the bottom of the page, with the Morvern hills across Loch Linnhe beyond it. To the right is the island of Lismore.
Turner made numerous sketches of Dunstaffnage Castle on his way to Oban in this sketchbook. For more information and references to all of the Dunstaffnage sketches see folio 89 (D26916).

Thomas Ardill
January 2010

1
Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan 1991, pp.23, 29.

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