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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Scotland 1801-10 > Watercolours Derived from the 1801 ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Blair Atholl, Looking towards Killiecrankie c.1801-2

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Blair Atholl, Looking towards Killiecrankie’ c.1801-2
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Blair Atholl, Looking towards Killiecrankie c.1801–2
D04179
Turner Bequest LXX b
Watercolour and gouache with stopping–out on white wove paper, 533 x 780 mm
Watermark ‘W Elgar 1798’
Stamped in black ‘LXX b’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is based on a pencil sketch in the 1801 Scotch Lakes sketchbook (Tate D03151–D03152; Turner Bequest LVI 121a–122). Although listed by Finberg among miscellaneous subjects of about 1800–2,1 until recently this large study was supposed to show a view in North Wales. Finberg (MS note) considered it ‘only a lay–in’ characterized by ‘weak greys’.2
The present author included this sheet in his catalogue for Turner in Wales, but omitted it from the actual display of that exhibition, on realising that in practice it did not ‘belong’ with those works. Its dependence on the sketch in the Scotch Lakes book was noticed by the artist Jeremy Yates.3
1
See Finberg 1909, I, pp.174–8, LXX A–Z, a–j.
2
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, opposite p.177.
3
Personal communication.
Technical notes:
Bower supposes that the paper was made by or for William Elgar, possibly working at Little Ivy Mill or Upper Tovil Mill, Maidstone, Kent.1
1
See Bower 1990, pp.73, 74 note 1.
Verso:
Blank

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

Revised by Matthew Imms
April 2015

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Blair Atholl, Looking towards Killiecrankie c.1801–2 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, revised by Matthew Imms, April 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-blair-atholl-looking-towards-killiecrankie-r1179844, accessed 25 April 2024.