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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Loch Long Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Views of the Firth of Forth from the River 1831

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Views of the Firth of Forth from the River’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 23 Recto:
Views of the Firth of Forth from the River 1831
D26663
Turner Bequest CCLXXI 23
Pencil on off-white laid writing paper, 101 x 158 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ?‘Ochil’ bottom right inverted
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘23’ top right running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXI – 23’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
On this page Turner continued to record the shorelines of the Firth of Forth as he travelled west upon it from Queensferry to Stirling (see inside back cover for details; D41132). The top two sketches have not been identified, though the top sketch appears to show the Orchil Hills, which are seen again in the second sketch which also includes a tower. This suggests that it may be somewhere near Clackmannan. David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan have suggested that the inscription at the bottom of the page, written with the book inverted, could be read as ‘Orchil’, making it also a view of the hills.1 The middle sketch is of a small harbour with a quayside and the masts of boats. It is presumably depicts the same place as the sketch on folio 23 verso (D26664), which, it has been suggested, may be Grangemouth on the south of the Forth.

Thomas Ardill
October 2009

1
Dr David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner’s Sketches North of Stirling’, Turner Studies: His Art and Epoch 1775–1851, Summer 1990 vol.10 no.1, p.15.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Views of the Firth of Forth from the River 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-views-of-the-firth-of-forth-from-the-river-r1135100, accessed 26 April 2024.