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 Trossachs from the West End of Loch Achray 1831

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Trossachs from the West End of Loch Achray’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 54 Verso:
Trossachs from the West End of Loch Achray 1831
D26543
Turner Bequest CCLXX 54a
Pencil on white wove paper, 125 x 201 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The present page and folio 55 (D26544) contain sketches of the Trossachs from the head of Loch Achray to the east of the woods.1 Turner was interested in the area, as were countless tourists, because it was the setting of Sir Walter Scott’s Lady of the Lake (1810). Turner’s vignette illustration to the poem shows the Trossachs from Loch Achray, and the artist may have referred to these two sketches when making the painting in order to capture the character of the landscape: Loch Achray circa 1832 (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection).2
The present sketch looks over the Trossachs towards Ben Venue, the summit of which can be seen at the left. Ben Venue is shown again along with Ben A’an on folio 55. For more information on Turner’s visit to the Trossachs and Loch Achray, and references to his sketches of the area, see folio 49 (D26532).

Thomas Ardill
October 2009

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner Round the Clyde and in Islay – 1831’, 1991, Tate catalogue files, folio 4.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.429 no.1085; the sketch was identified by David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner Round the Clyde and in Islay – 1831’, 1991, Tate catalogue files, folio 4.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Trossachs from the West End of Loch Achray 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-trossachs-from-the-west-end-of-loch-achray-r1134977, accessed 25 April 2024.