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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Knock Castle and Knock Bay, Skye 1831

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 91 Recto:
Knock Castle and Knock Bay, Skye 1831
D26615
Turner Bequest CCLXX 91
Pencil on white wove paper, 201 x 125 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Knock’ top
Stamped in black ‘CCLXX – 91’ top left inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
At the foot of the page with the sketchbook inverted is a sketch of a ruin on a headland inscribed ‘Knock’. David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan made the connection with Knock Castle (also called Castle Camus) on Skye in an unpublished article,1 although the authors later doubted their identification, crossing it out on the manuscript. The confusion seems to have arisen owing to the mis-identification of other sketches of Finlaggan as Knock (e.g. folio 70a; D26575), but the present sketch is clearly the latter, as seen from the Broadford Road to the south. There is a similar sketch, also inscribed ‘Knock’ on folio 83 (D26599), and further sketches of the castle on folios 78, 92 verso, and probably 86 (D26590, D26618, D26605).
At the head of the page and continuing on folio 90 verso (D26614) is a sketch that may have been made at the same time as the Knock Castle sketch. It shows the view east from the same position looking towards Knock Bay (without the castle this time) and across the Sound of Sleat to the mountainous mainland.

Thomas Ardill
March 2010

1
David Wallace–Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner on the Isle of Skye 1831’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [folio 11].

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Knock Castle and Knock Bay, Skye 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2010, 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-knock-castle-and-knock-bay-skye-r1135049, accessed 29 March 2024.