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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Scotland 1818-20 > Edinburgh, 1818, Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Roslin Castle 1818

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Roslin Castle’ 1818
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 27 Verso:
Roslin Castle 1818
D13502
Turner Bequest CLXVI 27a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 90 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Ros’ right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the book turned to the right, is a half-page sketch of Roslin Castle, seen from the north-west, and inscribed ‘Ros’. Turner made several more sketches of the castle from this view in the Scotch Antiquities sketchbook (see Tate D13717; Turner Bequest CLXVII 72a). Although parts of the castle are still relatively intact (see folio 65 verso; D13576), Turner has concentrated on the ruins to create a more picturesque image. With the sun appearing between clouds behind the castle, the ruins are silhouetted against the sky. The mass of foliage on the banks either side of the glen was carefully captured by Turner in his watercolour of the castle (Roslin Castle, circa 1820, watercolour, Indianapolis Museum of Art),1 which, as one commentator pointed out, ‘demonstrates his ability to draw complex woodland with the utmost clarity but without sacrificing anything of the wildness of natural forms’.2

Thomas Ardill
December 2007

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.426 no.1065.
2
Eric Shanes, Evelyn Joll, Ian Warrell and others, Turner: The Great Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London 2000, p.113.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Roslin Castle 1818 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2007, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-roslin-castle-r1132047, accessed 24 April 2024.