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 Hermitage Castle, Lidderdale 1831

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Hermitage Castle, Lidderdale’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 65 Recto:
Hermitage Castle, Lidderdale 1831
D25889
Turner Bequest CCLXVI 65
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 187 mm
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘65’ top right and ‘342’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXVI 65’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This view of Hermitage Castle from the south-east is similar to the sketch on folio 64 (D25887). Turner has used the Hermitage Water in the foreground to make the rather pastoral setting appear more wild and picturesque, contrasting the solidity of the castle with the fluidity of the water, and perhaps drawing an analogy between the castle ruins and the rugged rocks which both resist the forces of nature in the foreground. Turner painted a vignette of the subject to illustrate volume 4 of Sir Walter Scott’s Poetical Works: Hermitage Castle circa 1832 (watercolour, private collection).1 In this design Turner made the river into a prominent feature, and introduced dramatic, swirling clouds in the sky. The composition was based on folio 67 (D25893).

Thomas Ardill
September 2009

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.428 no.1077.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Hermitage Castle, Lidderdale 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-hermitage-castle-lidderdale-r1134256, accessed 26 April 2024.