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 Loch Etive and Dunstaffnage Castle from Loch Etive 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Loch Etive and Dunstaffnage Castle from Loch Etive’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 86 Recto:
Loch Etive and Dunstaffnage Castle from Loch Etive 1831
D26910
Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 86
Pencil on white wove paper, 116 x 186 mm
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘86’ top left running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXIII 86’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The two sketches on this page have been identified as views west along Loch Etive with Dunstaffnage Castle.1 The castle is clearly indicated in the larger sketch at the centre of the page, where it is shaded as a dark silhouette at the very left of the drawing. Behind it is the mountain of Dun da Ghaoithe on the island of Mull, with the island of Lismore in the centre and the Morvern hills beyond it. At the right is the hill above Achnaba on the north side of Loch Etive, also seen on folio 84 verso (D26907).
The sketch at the top of the page also shows the view west along Loch Etive from the same point. There is a building at the right which may be the castle again, with the southern shoreline of Loch Etive in the foreground at the left. It is not clear what the asterisk shape to the left of the building represents. The two parallel diagonal lines to the right of the castle are suggestive of a sheet of rain, as in the similar view on folio 82 verso (D26903).
For references to further sketches of Loch Etive see folio 95 verso (D26929), and for references to sketches of Dunstaffnage Castle see folio 84 verso.

Thomas Ardill
January 2010

1
Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan 1991, pp.23, 29.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Loch Etive and Dunstaffnage Castle from Loch Etive 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 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-loch-etive-and-dunstaffnage-castle-from-loch-etive-r1135267, accessed 23 September 2024.