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

Travelling around the environs of Edinburgh to sketch ruins for Scott’s Provincial Antiquities, Turner was presented with views of Edinburgh Castle from various angles and within different landscape settings. From this distance the castle can be seen in its entirety; something that is not possible from the crowded streets of Edinburgh where the castle looms above on its rock, with some parts hidden from view, while others are distorted by the low viewpoint.

With a simple outline, Turner records in this sketch the geographical and architectural body of the castle and rock, demonstrating its overall size and shape, and how it sits in the landscape. The topographical setting – perhaps somewhere near Craiglockhart or Braid Hills (see folios 44 verso, 45 verso, 46; D13400, D13402, D13403; CLXV 44a, 45a, 46) – also gives him the opportunity to include trees at the left of the picture which frame the castle in a Claudian manner.