Joseph Mallord William Turner

Across the inside front cover and folio 1 (D20936) of this sketchbook is a series of six sketches of coastlines. David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan have written that these sketches were made immediately after Turner left Oban pier on a steamboat bound for Skye.1 The views look south down the Sound of Kerrera from near Oban Bay, with the Gallanach Cliffs on the left and the island of Kerrera on the right.

At the very top of the current page, obscured by the executors’ endorsements, is a sketch of the outline of distant hills, perhaps those on the island of Mull. The Gallanach Cliffs are depicted in the next three sketches, with the sketch at the bottom of the page perhaps depicting the cliffs again with Carding Mill.

Turner continued to sketch from the deck of the boat as it moved away from Oban and made its way across the Firth of Lorn to the Sound of Mull; his journey can be followed (roughly in order) through the pages of this sketchbook.