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

This view of the High Street in Edinburgh, looking towards St Giles’s Cathedral is very close to a more fully realised drawing of the scene across two pages in the Scotch Antiquities sketchbook (folios 67 verso–68; Tate D13701, D13702; Turner Bequest CLXVII 65a, 66), that formed the basis of Turner Edinburgh High Street, circa 1818 (watercolour, Yale Centre for British Art)1 for the third number of Scott’s Provincial Antiquities.

This view, however, is taken from closer to the Cathedral, and so crops the distinctive open-crown spire and the tops of the buildings that line the High Street. The composition is also – as in his Provincial Antiquities illustration – compressed horizontally so that it fits in the narrower, single-page format. It seems to have been Turner’s method during this tour of Scotland to make initial rapid sketches in this or the Edinburgh, 1818 sketchbook (Tate D13449–D13586; D40934–D40937; complete sketchbook; Turner Bequest CLXVI) and then carry out a more detailed and carefully composed drawing in the Scotch Antiquities sketchbook, often across two pages, to form the basis of a finished watercolour. This is the method he has used with this subject. There are also sketches of Edinburgh High Street in the Scotch Antiquities sketchbook (Tate D13695, D13708; Turner Bequest CLXVII 61a, 68).

This sketch, however, was utilised for Turner’s watercolour. Having drawn all the windows of the building on the right in this sketch, he did not feel the need to do so again in the Scotch Antiquities sketchbook (Tate D13701; Turner Bequest CLXVII 64a), so must have referred to this drawing for that information. In fact, the windows depicted are of the building that is cropped out of the final design, as he did not draw the windows in the building next door; they were presumably similar enough to make it unnecessary. In this sketch Turner has also added two figures, one with a wheelbarrow, to suggest the bustling Lawnmarket that is depicted in the final design. There are further drawings of figures carrying goods and a barrow on the opposite page (folio 53; D13413; CLXV 51).

There are several inscriptions on the sketch, including various numbers that may refer to colours or repeated features: ‘5’in the top left, ‘1015’ (or ‘1615’), which may be a date, and perhaps ‘4’, top right, though it may be a window. Inscribed on the building to the far right of the drawing is an illegible inscription, perhaps a shop name, or the name of the proprietor. The inscription at the bottom right looks like ‘St Giles’, referring to the cathedral, and to its left is written ‘Johnson.’ This probably refers to Dr Johnson’s visit in 1773 to his friend and biographer Boswell who lived in James Court, a small close just off the Lawnmarket to the north (just to the left of the drawing).2 Despite his many derisory attacks on Scotland, Boswell reports Johnson to have ‘acknowledge[d] that the breadth of the street and the loftiness of the buildings on each side made a noble appearance’ to the High Street.3

The drawing on this page extends slightly to the page above (folio 53; Tate D13413; Turner Bequest CLXV 50).