J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

Turner’s inscription, ‘Barnabouk’, written upside-down at the bottom right of the page, has helped to identify the sketches on folios 62–63 (D26862–D26864) as a Barr-nam-boc Bay at the west of the island of Kerrera.1 Turner’s version of the name comes from the nearby farm which is written ‘Barnabuck’. The bay was then the main terminus for the ferry to Mull, and although Turner could have crossed over to Mull from here, David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan argue that he first returned to Oban.2 While on Kerrera, Turner also visited Gylen Castle at the south of the Island (folios 63 verso–75 verso; D26865–D26889).

The present sketch was made from the south and looks north across the bay to the hills that surround it. The buildings on the shoreline indicate that Barr-nam-boc was more built up in 1831 than it is today, and Turner has included in the foreground two figures that may have be waiting for the ferry to Mull. At the top of the page with the sketchbook inverted is another sketch looking along a shoreline; this may also be Kerrera.