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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Looking West Along Glencoe with the Three Sisters and the Notched Ridge 1831

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 33 Recto:
Looking West Along Glencoe with the Three Sisters and the Notched Ridge 1831
D26804
Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 33
Pencil on white wove paper, 116 x 186 mm
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘33’ top left running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXIII 33’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Looking west along Glencoe,1 this sketch was made from the road beneath Beinn Fhada, the most easterly of the Three Sisters (which are three distinctive ridges of the mountain Bidean nam Bian), to the south of Glencoe. The Three Sisters tower above to the left with the Notched Ridge (Aonach Eagach) to the right. This is one of a series of sketches looking west along Glencoe: folios 10–11, 17 verso, 18 and 33 (D26763–D26765, 26775, D26776, D26804). It is tempting to think that these were all made on Turner’s return journey from Glencoe to Ballachulish, while the views looking east (see folio 2; D26750 for references) were made on the outwards journey, though the artist could of course have looked east and west as he travelled along the glen.
1
Identified by David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner’s Journey from Oban to Inverness, 1831’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [folios 7, 14].
Verso:
Blank

Thomas Ardill
April 2010

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Looking West Along Glencoe with the Three Sisters and the Notched Ridge 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-looking-west-along-glencoe-with-the-three-sisters-and-the-r1135162, accessed 29 March 2024.