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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Stirling and the West Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ben Venue and the Trossachs From Loch Achray 1831

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Ben Venue and the Trossachs From Loch Achray’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Recto:
Ben Venue and the Trossachs From Loch Achray 1831
D26484
Turner Bequest CCLXX 25
Pencil on white wove paper, 125 x 201 mm
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘25’ bottom left descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXX – 25’ bottom left descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Ben Venue is seen here from the western end of Loch Achray to the east of the mountain. As David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan have pointed out, Turner must have made this sketch after ‘negotiating the difficult track, known in his time as The Ladder, though the pass [from Loch Katrine] to Loch Achray’.1 The wooded area between the two lochs is the Trossachs, which seems to have been the focus of Turner’s visit to the head of Loch Achray.
For more information on Turner’s visit to and sketches of the loch, see folio 49 (D26532).

Thomas Ardill
October 2009

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner Round the Clyde and in Islay – 1831’, 1991, Tate catalogue files, folio 2.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Ben Venue and the Trossachs From Loch Achray 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-ben-venue-and-the-trossachs-from-loch-achray-r1134918, accessed 23 April 2024.