Views of the Firth of Forth from the River

1831

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Loch Long Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 101 x 158 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D26663
Turner Bequest CCLXXI 23

Catalogue entry

On this page Turner continued to record the shorelines of the Firth of Forth as he travelled west upon it from Queensferry to Stirling (see inside back cover for details; D41132). The top two sketches have not been identified, though the top sketch appears to show the Orchil Hills, which are seen again in the second sketch which also includes a tower. This suggests that it may be somewhere near Clackmannan. David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan have suggested that the inscription at the bottom of the page, written with the book inverted, could be read as ‘Orchil’, making it also a view of the hills.1 The middle sketch is of a small harbour with a quayside and the masts of boats. It is presumably depicts the same place as the sketch on folio 23 verso (D26664), which, it has been suggested, may be Grangemouth on the south of the Forth.

Thomas Ardill
October 2009

Dr David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner’s Sketches North of Stirling’, Turner Studies: His Art and Epoch 1775–1851, Summer 1990 vol.10 no.1, p.15.

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