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

There are two views of the island of Staffa on this page. Turner approached the island from the north, and steamed round the west before landing at the south (see folio 18 verso; D26777). The two sketches on this page were made as the boat was approaching the landing. The sketch at the top of the page (towards the fore-edge) is a view from the south, and was made before the sketch beneath, which is from the south-east. The mouth of Fingal’s Cave is roughly indicated at the right of the top sketch, and to the left of that near the water is the smaller Boat Cave. Turner has added vertical lines to the rock face to indicate the layer of basalt columns that are an interesting geological feature of the island. There is a similar sketch on folio 19 verso (D26779).

At the bottom of the page, drawn with the sketchbook inverted, is a view of the island from the south-east. At the left of the island is a dark triangle that represents Am Buachaille (or the Herdsman), a pyramidal rock made of diagonal basalt columns just to the south of the main island. This sketch and subsequent sketches on folios 20 verso–21 verso (D26781–D26783) show that Turner saw the island from the south-east before he landed at the southern point. David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan point out that ‘those who entered Fingal’s Cave by boat [...] landing on the rocks at its mouth would have done so from a small ship’s boat’,1 and Turner, in his letter to James Lenox, recalled that he ‘scrambled over the rocks on the lee side of the island.’2 The steamboat must therefore have sought the sheltered eastern side of the island from which to launch the dingy carrying visitors to Fingal’s Cave.

For references to all of Turner’s sketches of Staffa and Fingal’s Cave see folio 40 (D26817).