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 The Junctions of Loch Long and Loch Goil From Loch Long with Carrick Castle 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Junctions of Loch Long and Loch Goil From Loch Long with Carrick Castle’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 18 Recto:
The Junctions of Loch Long and Loch Goil From Loch Long with Carrick Castle 1831
D26470
Turner Bequest CCLXX 18
Pencil on white wove paper, 125 x 201 mm
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘18’ bottom left descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXX – 18’ bottom left descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The two sketches on this page depict the junction of Loch Long and Loch Goil as seen from Loch Long. They both show the southern tip of the Ardgoil Peninsula (also known as Argyll’s Bowling Green) with the mountain Clach Bheinn, and look into the mouth of Loch Goil. In the top sketch, drawn towards the inside of the page with the gutter at the top, Carrick Castle is also sketched as a couple of boxes on the far shore of Loch Goil opposite its entrance. This sketch was inscribed ‘Carrick’ by Turner. There are further sketches of Carrick Castle on folio 18 verso (D26471).
The sketch beneath, at the fore-edge of the page, was drawn with the book inverted and shows the same place, but our viewpoint (the deck of a steamer on Loch Long) has now moved further south, so that the castle is hidden by the foreground at the left.
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan have written that the sketches were made on Turner’s outward journey on Loch Long, just as he was about to enter Loch Goil.1 However, it is also possible that Turner could have sketched the view on his return journey down the length of the loch from Arrochar. The previous sketchbook page (folio 17 verso; D26469) includes a view that was made from north of the junction of lochs Long and Goil, indicating that it must have been made on the return journey. Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan have suggested that sketches of Carrick Castle on the following page (folio 18 verso; D26469) were also made at this time.
Turner made sketches of Loch Long and Loch Goil in both the present sketchbook and the Loch Long sketchbook, where there are two further sketches of Loch Goil and Carrick Castle from the south-east (Tate D26628, D26648; Turner Bequest CCLXXI 5, 15 verso). See folio 17 verso of the present sketchbook for further references.

Thomas Ardill
October 2009

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner Round the Clyde and in Islay – 1831’, 1991, Tate catalogue files, folio 1.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘The Junctions of Loch Long and Loch Goil From Loch Long with Carrick Castle 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 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-the-junctions-of-loch-long-and-loch-goil-from-loch-long-with-r1134904, accessed 23 April 2024.