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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner North Queensferry from the Firth of Forth 1801

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Recto:
North Queensferry from the Firth of Forth 1801
D02929
Turner Bequest LVI 3
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 184 mm
Partial watermark ‘C Wi | 17’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘3’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘LVI – 3’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. The Queen’s Ferry was named for Margaret, wife of Ling Malcolm III of Scotland in the eleventh century, who is said to have instituted the crossing of the Firth of Forth at this, its narrowest point. The village remained a small and isolated one, frequented mainly by travellers using the ferry, until the building of the Forth rail bridge in the 1890s. Turner crossed from South Queensferry and made a number of drawings here before going on to Linlithgow; see folios 4 recto, 5 recto, 6 recto, 7 recto, 8 recto, 9 recto, 12 recto (D02930–D02935, D02940).
Verso:
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Queensferry’.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘North Queensferry from the Firth of Forth 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-north-queensferry-from-the-firth-of-forth-r1179121, accessed 26 April 2024.