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 The Firth of Forth 1818

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Firth of Forth’ 1818
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 53 Verso:
The Firth of Forth 1818
D13554
Turner Bequest CLXVI 53a
Pencil on white wove paper, 90 x 112 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This double-page sketch (continued on folio 54; D13555) shows the same view along the Firth of Forth as folios 47 verso–48 (D13542–D13543) where a group of people stand on a beach by a domed pavilion and a twin-gabled building. Finberg suggested the scene was on the ‘north side of the Firth of Forth’,1 and David Wallace-Hadrill proposed that this might be North Queensferry, in which case the view is looking east.2 There are views of the Firth of Forth throughout this sketchbook covering the area around Dunbar and North Berwick, and between Leith and Blackness Castle on the southern banks, and around North Queensferry and Rosyth Castle on the Fife banks (see Edinburgh, 1818 sketchbook Introduction).

Thomas Ardill
April 2008

1
Finberg 1909, I, p.483, CLXVI 53a.
2
David Wallace-Hadrill, unpublished notes, [circa 1989–94], Tate catalogue files.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘The Firth of Forth 1818 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2008, 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-the-firth-of-forth-r1132099, accessed 25 April 2024.