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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Abbotsford Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Jedburgh 1831

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Jedburgh’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 61 Verso:
Jedburgh 1831
D26035
Turner Bequest CCLXVII 63a
Pencil on off-white wove writing paper, 113 x 185 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This view of Jedburgh from the south-east across the Jed water includes Jedburgh Abbey with Newgate to its right, Abbey Bridge beneath it, and Jedburgh Castle Jail, which has been brought forward in the sketch. The castle also appears in the little outline sketch at the top left of the page. This sketch, and two similar views on folios 60 verso and 61 (D26033, D26034; CCLXVII 62a, 63), are presumably those that Robert Cadell described as ‘the best views of the abbey’, made by Turner as Cadell ‘returned to the inn & wrote my letter for home’.1
Following these sketches, Turner made the drawing on folio 63 verso (D26039; CCLXVII 65a) which formed the basis of his watercolour, Jedburgh Abbey circa 1832 (Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati).2

Thomas Ardill
September 2009

1
Robert Cadell, ‘Abbotsford Diary’, Tuesday 9 August 1831, National Library of Scotland, MS Acc.5188, Box 1, folio 111; transcribed in Gerald E. Finley, ‘J.M.W. Turner and Sir Walter Scott: Iconography of a Tour’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol.31, 1972, p.384.
2
Wilton 1979, p.427 no.1072.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Jedburgh 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-jedburgh-r1134403, accessed 26 April 2024.