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 > Scotch Lakes Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Killin, with Ben Lawers and Loch Tay 1801

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Killin, with Ben Lawers and Loch Tay’ 1801
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 79 Verso:
Killin, with Ben Lawers and Loch Tay 1801
D03065
Turner Bequest LVI 77a
Pencil on white wove paper, 184 x 114 mm
Partial watermark ‘C Wi | 17’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil with a place name bottom centre (see main catalogue entry)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing is continued on folio 80 recto opposite (D03066; Turner Bequest LVI 78).
The inscription is puzzling. It is not in the same style of handwriting as the usual place-names in this sketchbook, and seems to have been written at a different time, although it does appear to be Turner’s; Finberg read it as ‘Stirling’, with ‘Kelling’ as a speculative alternative,1 but this does not seem to be correct; ‘Killin’ may have been intended, or ‘Lochay’. The River Lochy, like the River Dochart, flows into Loch Tay from the west.
The overall identification of the place seems reasonably secure; for more developed views of Killin and Ben Lawers see the ‘Scottish Pencils’ (Tate D03401, D03420, D03421; Turner Bequest LVIII 22, 41, 42).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Finberg 1909, I, p.146.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Killin, with Ben Lawers and Loch Tay 1801 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, 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-killin-with-ben-lawers-and-loch-tay-r1179260, accessed 23 April 2024.