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 Abbotsford from the South-West 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Abbotsford from the South-West’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 67 Verso:
Abbotsford from the South-West 1831
D26047
Turner Bequest CCLXVII 69a
Pencil on off-white wove writing paper, 113 x 185 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook inverted is a view of Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford from the south-west. Turner made views of the houses from every point of the compass (folios 15 verso–18; D25955–D25960, D26046–D26048; CCLXVII 15a–18, 16–70). Some of these may have been made on 5 August 1831 when Robert Cadell reported in his diary: ‘Mr Turner and I stood out on one of the terraces to try to catch the best view of Abbotsford’.1
At the left of the page is a slight continuation from folio 68 (D26048; CCLXVII 70). It is unclear what the scribbles in the foreground represent.
See folio 16 verso (D25957; CCLXVII 16a) for further information on Turner’s sketches of Abbotsford.

Thomas Ardill
September 2009

1
Robert Cadell, ‘Abbotsford Diary’, Friday 5 August 1831, National Library of Scotland, MS Acc. 5188, Box 12, folio 104; 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.35, 1972, p.378.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Abbotsford from the South-West 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-abbotsford-from-the-south-west-r1134415, accessed 19 April 2024.