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 Tobermory Harbour; and ?Loch Sunart from the West 1831

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Tobermory Harbour; and ?Loch Sunart from the West’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 45 Recto:
Tobermory Harbour; and ?Loch Sunart from the West 1831
D26827
Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 45
Pencil on white wove paper, 116 x 186 mm
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘45’ bottom right descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXIII 45’ bottom left descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There are in fact two sketches on this page, although they are overlapping and so appear as one. The first is a view from the hill above Tobermory Bay looking down on the north end of the harbour from the west. Turner has included several boats in the harbour, which is represented by a series of box shapes. Above this is a sketch looking along a loch surrounded by mountains. This has been tentatively identified as a view up Loch Sunart.1 Turner must have made this sketch as the Maid of Morvern left the Sound of Mull on its way to the Isle of Staffa.
For more information about Turner’s time in Tobermory and references to further sketches see folio 1 verso (D26749).

Thomas Ardill
March 2010

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner on Mull and Staffa’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [folio 11].

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Tobermory Harbour; and ?Loch Sunart from the West 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-tobermory-harbour-and-loch-sunart-from-the-west-r1135185, accessed 26 April 2024.