The East End of Loch Katrine With the Landing, Ben Venue and Coir-nan-Uriskin

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: Stirling and the West Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 125 x 201 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D26486
Turner Bequest CCLXX 26

Catalogue entry

Turner travelled east along Loch Katrine from Stonachlachar (folio 22 verso; D26479), landing at the east end. This sketch was made from near the ‘landing’ which is shown at the bottom left of the page. The view is south towards Ben Venue, the wooded northern slopes of which plunge into the loch at the south-east end, with the summit shown between two small peaks to the north of the pass of Bealach nam Bo. Just right of centre between to two peaks is the corrie (cirque, or basin formation) called Coir-nan-Uriskin, or Goblin’s Cave. Turner made a note of this on folio 32 (D26498).1 The roof of a loch-side cottage or barn can be seen below the mountain at the left. The artist had already made a similar view before his boat approached the landing (folio 24 verso; D26483).

Turner’s interest in Loch Katrine centred on the east end, especially Ben Venue, and there are a number of sketches that show this part of the loch, including one on folio 47 (D26528) that became the basis of Turner’s design for The Lady of the Lake volume of Sir Walter Scott’s Poetical Works: Loch Katrine circa 1832 (watercolour, British Museum).2

Thomas Ardill
October 2009

Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner Round the Clyde and in Islay – 1831’, [circa 1990–99], Tate catalogue files, folio 4.

Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.429 no.1084.

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