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

This page contains sketches of views from Dunollie Castle, near Oban.1 Drawn along the bottom of the page, with the sketchbook inverted, and continuing at the right on folio 95 verso (D26925) is a view looking south across the water towards Oban and the island of Kerrera. Oban can be made out by the dark shapes of buildings below the cliff at the centre left of the sketch, and there are several boats in the bay. Kerrera is depicted on the continuation of the sketch on folio 95 verso. The same view is depicted in the sketch drawn parallel with the fore-edge of the page, and there is a similar view on folio 93 verso (D26925).

Drawn across the centre of the page, beneath the second sketch of Oban from Dunollie, is a sketch of distant mountains inscribed ‘ar’. This view continued (to the right) in the little sketch beneath at the lower left of the page. Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan have suggested that this may be a view looking towards the mountains of Morvern. The shape of the mountains at the centre of the sketch in fact make a good match for Sgurr Dearg and Dun da Ghaoithe on the island of Mull, which could mean that the Mountains of Morvern are depicted at the right side of the sketch, and in the continuing sketch beneath.