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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner Clamshell Cave, Staffa, Looking Towards Ulva 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Clamshell Cave, Staffa, Looking Towards Ulva’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 34 Verso:
Clamshell Cave, Staffa, Looking Towards Ulva 1831
D26806
Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 34a
Pencil on white wove paper, 116 x 186 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Identified by David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan,1 this sketch of the entrance to the Clamshell Cave on the Isle of Staffa is recognisable by the large curved ridge of rock in the foreground at the left. The view is from the southern side of the cave entrance and looks north-east towards the island of Ulva. Sketches looking in the opposite direction (but again with the curved ridge at the entrance to the Clamshell Cave) are on folios 30 and 35. There may also be a view of the cave on folio 39 (D26799, D26807, D26815).
For references to all of Turners views of Staffa, see folio 40 (D26817).

Thomas Ardill
March 2010

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner on Mull and Staffa, 1831’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [folios 8, 18].

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Clamshell Cave, Staffa, Looking Towards Ulva 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-clamshell-cave-staffa-looking-towards-ulva-r1135164, accessed 24 April 2024.