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 Ben Arthur from Arrochar, Loch Long 1831

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Ben Arthur from Arrochar, Loch Long’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 61 Verso:
Ben Arthur from Arrochar, Loch Long 1831
D26557
Turner Bequest CCLXX 61a
Pencil on white wove paper, 201 x 125 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned in two directions are two sketches of Ben Arthur as seen from around Arrochar at the north-east of Loch Long.1 At the head of the page (so that the fore-edge is at the left and the gutter at the right) is a simple but bold and distinctive drawing of the outline of the craggy summit of Ben Arthur. The same shape can be observed in the small sketch at the tail of folio 62 (D26558). Turner inverted the sketchbook for the next drawing, which probably shows the lower peak of the eastern foothills of Ben Arthur as seen from the same point, or from nearby.
See folio 62 for further sketches and information on Turner’s views of Ben Arthur from Arrochar, and see folio 33 (D26500) for references to all of Turner’s sketches of the mountain made during this tour.

Thomas Ardill
October 2009

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner Round the Clyde and in Islay – 1831’, 1991, Tate catalogue files, folio 7.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Ben Arthur from Arrochar, Loch Long 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-ben-arthur-from-arrochar-loch-long-r1134991, accessed 27 April 2024.