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

Turner’s inscriptions – P Jura’ – help us to identify the sketch across the top of this page and folio 85 (D26603) as the Paps of Jura, the three distinctive mountain peaks on the island of Jura. The most likely view is from Port Askaig across the Sound of Islay to the west, as depicted on the reverse of this page: folio 84 (D26601). The inscription at the left of the sketch on folio 85 appears to say ‘Islay’ in which case it is either the very northern tip of Islay, or Turner has made a mistake and the view is not from Islay but from the sea to the east of Jura. Port Askaig, nevertheless, remains the most likely vantage point of this sketch. See folio 37 verso (D26509) for references to further sketches of Port Askaig.

Beneath is a faint sketch of a mountain peak with an indecipherable inscription beneath. This resembles closely the shape of the mountain of Maol Cheann-dearg in Wester Ross as seen from the south, and may therefore be a view from Broadford Bay on Skye. There is a sketch of the wider view from Broadford Bay on folio 86 (D26605). Otherwise it may be simply another view of one of the Paps of Jura from Port Askaig.