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

This detailed and delicate view of Edinburgh from the village of Dean spreads across two sketchbook pages (continued on folio 38; D17568). Turner evidently walked along the Water of Leith from Leith to Edinburgh (see folio 10 verso; D17527), and when he reached the Village of Dean to the north-west of the city he could not resist spending some time making another drawing of this familiar view (see Scotch Antiquities sketchbook, 1818, Tate D13739–D13740 and D13741–D13742; Turner Bequest CLXVII 83a–84, 84a–85).

On the present page we look across the village of Dean over the Water of Leith and up to Charlotte Square with St George’s church. One corner of Edinburgh Castle is shown at the very right of the page (it continues on folio 38). In the centre of the picture on the present page three tall structures stand above the Georgian houses of Edinburgh’s New Town. These may be, from left to right, Nelson’s Monument, the spire of St Andrew’s Church and the Melville Monument.