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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?North Queensferry or Skye 1831

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?North Queensferry or Skye’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Verso:
?North Queensferry or Skye 1831
D26437
Turner Bequest CCLXX 1a
Pencil on white wove paper, 201 x 125 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ?‘Hooley’ [or ?‘sky’] on the sketch
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan have read the inscription on this page as indicating ‘Hooley’, the nickname given to the Napoleonic defences built at North Queensferry which were, by the time Turner saw them, being used as a ferry passengers’ shelter.1 Turner crossed the Firth of Forth from South Queensferry near Edinburgh on his way to Dunfermline in 1831. There is a sketch of either North or South Queensferry on folio 1 (D26436).
Although the authors were very certain about their identification of this sketch, there seems to be little to go on with the obscure inscription and the hilly coastline. The inscription looks more like ‘Sky’, suggesting that the coast of Skye, perhaps near the landing at Ardvasar, may be an alternative identification.

Thomas Ardill
June 2010

1
Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan 1990, p.14.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘?North Queensferry or Skye 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2010, 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-north-queensferry-or-skye-r1134871, accessed 19 April 2024.