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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Glen Goil; and Loch Katrine 1831

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 16 Verso:
Glen Goil; and Loch Katrine 1831
D26650
Turner Bequest CCLXXI 16a
Pencil on off-white laid writing paper, 101 x 158 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Loch K’ bottom right descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXI – 16a’ descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan have suggested identifications for the three sketches on this page. With the sketchbook turned so that the fore-edge is at the top, across the top half of the page is a sketch that the authors compare to the sketch of Loch Goil on folio 1 verso (D26620).1 If their identification is correct, then the view is north from around Lochgoilhead and includes the mountain, Ben Donich, at the right.
The other two sketches on the page are likely to be of Loch Katrine. At the head of the page by the gutter, with the book turned in the conventional orientation, is a sketch inscribed ‘Loch K’. As Wallace-Hadrill has observed, the sketch ‘doesn’t look right!’2 In fact, the topography is more reminiscent of the Trossachs as seen from the west end of Loch Achray, with Ben Venue on the left (see Tate D26541; Turner Bequest CCLXX 53a) and Ben A’an on the right (Tate D26542; Turner Bequest CCLXX 54). Turner’s inscription may therefore note that the view is looking in the direction of Loch Katrine, rather than actually being of it.
Along the page gutter, with the gutter at the top, is another sketch of Loch Katrine, this time from the water looking east along the loch with Ben Venue at the right. There are further views of Loch Katrine on folios 11, 11 verso and 14 (D26639, D26640, D26645). For more information on Turner’s visit to Loch Katrine, and full references of the sketches he made of it, see Tate D26528 (Turner Bequest CCLXX 47).

Thomas Ardill
October 2009

1
David Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Sketchbook CCLXXI Loch Long’, unpublished notes, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files.
2
Ibid.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Glen Goil; and Loch Katrine 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-glen-goil-and-loch-katrine-r1135087, accessed 19 September 2024.