Joseph Mallord William Turner

From the top of Calton Hill, Turner made two views of the Firth of Forth across this and the next sketchbook page (folio 41; D13529). The lower sketch was made from the path near the City Observatory and looks north and north-east over the city and across the Forth with the island of Inchkeith at the centre of this page, and across to the Fife shore on folio 41 with buildings in the city of Edinburgh just to the north of Calton Hill. The top sketch looks across to the shore of Fife, perhaps at Burntisland which can be seen on the following page.

Turner made several views from Calton Hill including the sketch in the Scotch Antiquities sketchbook (Tate D13651–D13652; Turner Bequest CLXVII 39a–40) that formed the basis of his watercolour Edinburgh from Calton Hill, circa 1819 (National Gallery of Scotland).1