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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Lincluden Collegiate Church, Near Dumfries 1831

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lincluden Collegiate Church, Near Dumfries’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 55 Recto:
Lincluden Collegiate Church, Near Dumfries 1831
D25869
Turner Bequest CCLXVI 55
Pencil on white wove paper, 187 x 114 mm
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin 55’ top left running vertically and ‘342’ top right running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXVI 55’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned to the left are four sketches of the tower to the north of Lincluden Collegiate Church.1 The sketches reveal Turner’s interest in the ragged tower and his methodical approach as he walked around it, drawing it from four sides.
At the top of the page is a view of Lincluden Church from the east with the south transept, the east end of the choir and the ruined tower. Turner then moved round to the south-east so that he could include the arched windows of the choir (as in folio 54; D25867) along with the tower. The third view down was taken from the banks of the Cluden Water to the north. The river and bank are shown in the right foreground with the church and the north tower beyond. Finally at the bottom of the page is a view from the north-west.
Having made these studies, Turner then turned to one of the grey-washed pages at the back of this sketchbook to draw a composition of the church and river which he labelled ‘Nr Dumfries’ (folio 89 verso; D25922).
For more information on Turner’s sketches of Lincluden, see folio 53 verso (D25866).

Thomas Ardill
September 2009

1
This seems not to have been part of the church, but a tower at the end of a range of demolished buildings: ‘Lincluden Collegiate Church’, Undiscovered Scotland, accessed 22 April 2009, http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/dumfries/lincluden/index.html.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Lincluden Collegiate Church, Near Dumfries 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2009, 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-lincluden-collegiate-church-near-dumfries-r1134236, accessed 22 September 2024.