Joseph Mallord William Turner

This sketch has been identified as depicting Oban from the pier.1 We therefore look south from just beyond the bay to the quay with Pulpit Hill at the right. The pier is seen in a sketch on folio 98 verso (D26933; CCLXXIII 97a), and Turner stood on Pulpit Hill for another view of the town (folio 79 verso; D26898). The artist may have made this sketch as he was leaving Oban by steamboat, perhaps on his way to Inverness via Fort William. For further sketches of Oban see folio 58 verso (D26855).

Although this page is numbered ‘97’ according to John Ruskin’s numbering, which was followed by Finberg when he gave it a Turner Bequest number (CCLXXIII 97), it has since been rebound at the end of the sketchbook, making this folio 98.