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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1834 > Stirling and Edinburgh Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Edinburgh Castle from the Slopes of Arthur's Seat 1834

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Edinburgh Castle from the Slopes of Arthur's Seat’ 1834
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 83 Verso:
Edinburgh Castle from the Slopes of Arthur’s Seat 1834
D26419
Turner Bequest CCLXIX 83a
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 113 x 190 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the sketchbook inverted across this page and folio 84 (D26420) is a view towards Edinburgh from the northern slopes of Arthur’s Seat. It is one of a sequence of similar views of the city drawn on 1 October in preparation for an illustration to Sir Water Scott’s Prose Works: see folio 89 verso (D26431).
Very little of the city is actually depicted in this rather diagrammatical sketch. Edinburgh Castle perched on Castle Rock, however, is recognisable at the centre of the present page as is the open-crown spire of St Giles’s Cathedral to the right. The gothic spire of the Tron Kirk is indicated very roughly to the right of this.

Thomas Ardill
November 2010

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Edinburgh Castle from the Slopes of Arthur’s Seat 1834 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2010, 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-edinburgh-castle-from-the-slopes-of-arthurs-seat-r1136349, accessed 24 April 2024.