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 Gylen Castle, Kerrera; and Glencoe 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Gylen Castle, Kerrera; and Glencoe’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 74 Verso:
Gylen Castle, Kerrera; and Glencoe 1831
D26887
Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 74a
Pencil on white wove paper, 186 x 116 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Glenco’ top right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The two sketches on this page have been identified as Gylen Castle on the island of Kerrera, and a view of Glencoe.1 The faint sketch of Gylen Castle shows a view from the north-east with the Firth of Lorn and the Isle of Mull beyond. There is a similar, but more detailed view on folio 74 (D26886), and views of the castle from various angles on folios 63 verso–75 verso (D26865–D26889).
At the top right of the page is a boxed-off sketch inscribed ‘Glenco’. This shows a view east up the glen on the approach to Achtriochtan, with the River Coe in the foreground and the shoulder of Bidean nam Bian at the right. There is a similar view on folio 26 verso (D26792). The sketch is out of sequence with the rest of the Glencoe sketches (see folio 2; D26750), although that is not unusual in this sketchbook, where many of the subjects covered are mixed up with each other.

Thomas Ardill
April 2010

1
Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan 1991, p.29.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Gylen Castle, Kerrera; and Glencoe 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-gylen-castle-kerrera-and-glencoe-r1135244, accessed 19 April 2024.