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

Turner steamed up Loch Lomond as part of a round trip from Dumbarton to Loch Lomond, Loch Arklet, Loch Katrine and Loch Achray (see Tour of Scotland for Scott’s Poetical Works 1831 Tour Introduction).1 He made his first sketches of this journey from the western shore of Loch Lomond near the village of Luss in the present book (folio 84; D26601) and in the Loch Long sketchbook (Tate D26652; Turner Bequest CCLXXI 17a). This spot was familiar from his 1801 tour, when the artist made sketches of Ben Lomond from Luss in the Scotch Lakes sketchbook (Tate D02982–D02984, D41242, D41244; Turner Bequest LVI 36a–38a). He later returned to these sketches for a vignette illustration to Rogers’s Poems: Loch Lomond, 1834, circa 1826–36 (Tate D27699; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 182).2

The present sketch was taken from Luss where the steamboat landed. In the foreground are cottages near the pier with boats drawn up on the beach and figures standing around who may be fellow passengers. Beyond the town is Loch Lomond with the mountain of Ben Lomond to the north at the right, and the mountains Beinn Dubh and Beinn Bhreac at the left. A sketch at the top of the page depicts a rocky shoreline. Further sketches of or from Luss appear on folios 10, 23 verso and 28 verso (D26454, D26481, D26491). Further up the loch, Turner stopped at Inveruglas where he made a sketch of the loch and Ben Lomond (folio 21; D26476). There are further sketches of Loch Lomond on folios 52, 67, 77 verso, 86 verso–87, 92 and 92 verso of this sketchbook (D26538, D26568, D26589, D26606–D26607, D26617, D26618).