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 Loch, With Mountains 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Loch, With Mountains’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 30 Verso:
Loch, With Mountains 1831
D26495
Turner Bequest CCLXX 30a
Pencil on white wove paper, 125 x 201 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ?‘Ilonsay’ bottom centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Unfortunately the inscription at the bottom of the first sketch on this page, which looks like ‘Ilonsay’, does not help to identify the location as there is no such place. The view was made from a height near the shore of a loch which he look across. The far shore is surrounded by hills and there are several vessels at the right of the loch. During his exploration of the Scottish lochs Turner took a steamboat trip up Loch Lomond and on Lochs Long and Goil, and coached or walked along the shores of Lochs Arklet and Katrine (see Tour of Scotland for Scott’s Poetical Works Tour Introduction). David Wallace-Hadrill has suggested that the most likely locations are either Loch Lomond or Loch Katrine.1
The other sketch on the page, made with the book inverted, is of mountains by the side of a loch. There is nothing specific enough to narrow down its location.

Thomas Ardill
October 2009

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘CCLXX “Stirling” Checklist’’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Loch, With Mountains 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-loch-with-mountains-r1134929, accessed 21 September 2024.