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 Castle, Edinburgh 1818

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Castle, Edinburgh’ 1818
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 54 Verso:
The Castle, Edinburgh 1818
D13556
Turner Bequest CLXVI 54a
Pencil on white wove paper, 90 x 112 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook inverted and continuing onto folio 55 (D13557) is a drawing of Edinburgh Castle. The view looking up to the Half Moon Battery with the Esplanade below and the row of houses on Castle Hill to the left (folio 55) was taken from the north-east, perhaps from the Mound.
Although the castle was not itself a subject commissioned by Walter Scott for his Provincial Antiquities, as the city’s most prominent landmark it is an inevitable feature of many Edinburgh views and Turner made numerous studies accordingly, sketching the castle from all orientations and comparing views from different points in the city and its environs.
There is light but extensive foxing across this page.

Thomas Ardill
January 2008

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘The Castle, Edinburgh 1818 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 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-castle-edinburgh-r1132101, accessed 23 April 2024.