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

The larger sketch on this page, drawn with book held so that the spine is at the top, is of Dunstaffnage Castle and Chapel as seen from the west.1 From just outside the chapel, the view looks past the south-east corner towards the south corner of the castle. The view is similar to a sketch on folio 91 (D26920) but with much more detail. Turner has paid attention to the pillars of the arched windows and to the dog-tooth moulding around the east window, as well as several details of the castle such as the stone work of the southern tower, the crow-stepped gables of the gatehouse, and the shape of the rock on which the castle stands. In the distance is the mountain Beinn Mheadhonach to the east.

The second sketch, drawn with the sketchbook inverted at the fore-edge of the page, was made from across Dunstaffnage Bay to the east. Across the water the castle sits on a headland with the mountains on the island of Mull, somewhat exaggerated in size, looming up behind. Across Loch Linnhe to the right are the hills of Morvern. Turner made a similar view, though from closer to the castle, on folio 91.

Although the artist had no commission at this time to paint Dunstaffnage, his studies would be put to good use a few years later when he painted a watercolour, Dunstaffnage circa 1832–5 (Indianapolis Museum of Art),2 to illustrate a new edition of Tales of a Grandfather, volume 24 of Sir Walter Scott’s Prose Works. For references to Turner’s other sketches of Dunstaffnage see folio 89 (D26916).