Joseph Mallord William Turner

Rather than a ‘Lighthouse on [the] coast’ as Finberg suggests,1 this is in fact Nelson’s Monument on Calton Hill with Edinburgh Castle in the background as seen from the north. The drawing is very faint and made up almost entirely of outlines, so that what are in fact hills, the castle and the mass of buildings in Edinburgh take on the appearance of rocks. The confusion is compounded by the sketches of Dunbar on the recto of this leaf and on the following page (folios 54 and 55; D13415, D13417; CLXV 52, 53).

There are drawings of Calton Hill on folios 45 verso, 47, 55 verso, 57, 57 verso, 59 and 60 (D13402, D13405, D13418, D13421, D13422, D13425, D13427; CLXV 45a, 47, 53a, 55, 55a, 57, 58) and studies of the Nelson Monument on folios 61 and 62 verso (D13429, D13432; CLXV 59, 60a).