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 Oban From the North 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Oban From the North’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 80 Recto:
Oban From the North 1831
D26898
Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 80
Pencil on white wove paper, 116 x 186 mm
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘80’ top left running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXIII 80’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan have identified, this sketch shows Oban from the cliffs to the north.1 The town is huddled in a bay between hills, with Pulpit Hill just behind it to the south, and the Gallanach cliffs beyond that. Turner also drew the town and bay from Dunollie Castle, a little to the north of where this sketch was made (folio 93 verso; D26925), but the sketch that this most closely relates to is opposite on folio 79 verso (D26897). That shows Oban from Pulpit Hill to the south of the town, and can therefore be regarded as the sister to the current view.
For references to further sketches of Oban, see folio 58 verso (D26855).

Thomas Ardill
February 2010

1
Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan 1991, p.27.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Oban From the North 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-oban-from-the-north-r1135255, accessed 20 April 2024.