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

Although David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan identified the other sketches of Dunfermline Abbey in this sketchbook,1 they omitted to mention the present sketch, perhaps because of its similarity to views elsewhere in the sketchbook (e.g. folio 4; D26442). This view of the abbey church with some of the ruins of the old monastery was made from the glen (now part of Pittencrieff Park) to the south-west. Looking up the side of the tree-covered glen, most of the abbey church is depicted at the top of the page. Turner has drawn the church in outline only, indicating the north-west spire at the left, the east tower to the right and some of the arched windows, as he was to sketch it in more detail from close-up on the opposite page of this sketchbook: folio 6 (D26446).

Turner visited Dunfermline on his way from Edinburgh to Stirling in 1831 and later used his sketches as the basis for an illustration to a new edition of Sir Walter Scott’s Tales of a Grandfather. See folio 3 verso (D26441) for details and references to further sketches.