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

The main sketch on this page, and evidently the first to be made, is of the east end of Loch Katrine.1 From a point near the mouth of the Achray Water we look west down the loch with the Am Priosan promontory at the left, and an outcrop at the foot of Ben Venue (see folio 28; D26490 for another view of this). Turner made a number of sketches from the east end of the loch around the landing place (folio 26; D26486), and of the surrounding mountains. His sketch on folio 47 (D26528) became the basis of his watercolour, Loch Katrine circa 1832 (watercolour, British Museum),2 which was engraved to illustrate volume 8 of Sir Walter Scott’s Poetical Works, The Lady of the Lake in 1834.

With the sketchbook inverted are sketches made at a later point on Turner’s tour of Scotland. Parallel to the page gutter, now the top of the page, is a sketch inscribed ‘Har[bour] of E[ast] Tarbert’. This is a view from the quayside of East Tarbert on the Kintyre Peninsula looking east across the water to the harbour mouth with the two small rock islands and shipping. It is likely that the two sketches at the bottom of the page (the fore-edge) are also of East Tarbert Harbour. One carries an inscription that may say ‘castle’ referring to Tarbert Castle. For references to further sketches of East Tarbert see folio 88 verso (D26610).