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

There are four sketches of Rhymer’s Glen in this sketchbook, of which this is the first (folios 4 verso to 6; D25934–D25937; CCLXVII 4a–6). There are also several sketches of the subject in the Edinburgh sketchbook (1834), which were made on his return to the area in 1834: Tate D26193–D26195 (Turner Bequest CCLXVIII 50a–51).1

Turner visited the glen on the 7 August 1831 in order to make sketches in preparation for an illustration to Sir Walter Scott’s Poetical Works,2 although in the event the subject was engraved for Scott’s Prose Works (see D26193 for further details and the sketch used as the basis of the vignette).

The present page, used with the sketchbook turned to the left, includes what may be two sketches of the glen. Though rapidly scribbled, they are expressive of the rugged nature of the glen which twists though the trees in both. The trees on the right bank of the top sketch may have been the basis of the trees at the right of the vignette design: Rhymer’s Glen, Abbotsford circa 1834 (watercolour, National Gallery of Scotland).3

At the bottom right of the page Turner has written several letters, as if practising writing a word. No significance has been deciphered.