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 Pier 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Oban from the Pier’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 98 Recto:
Oban from the Pier 1831
D26932
Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 97
Pencil on white wove paper, 116 x 186 mm
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘97’ top left running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXIII 97’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch has been identified as depicting Oban from the pier.1 We therefore look south from just beyond the bay to the quay with Pulpit Hill at the right. The pier is seen in a sketch on folio 98 verso (D26933; CCLXXIII 97a), and Turner stood on Pulpit Hill for another view of the town (folio 79 verso; D26898). The artist may have made this sketch as he was leaving Oban by steamboat, perhaps on his way to Inverness via Fort William. For further sketches of Oban see folio 58 verso (D26855).
Although this page is numbered ‘97’ according to John Ruskin’s numbering, which was followed by Finberg when he gave it a Turner Bequest number (CCLXXIII 97), it has since been rebound at the end of the sketchbook, making this folio 98.

Thomas Ardill
February 2010

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

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Oban from the Pier 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-pier-r1135291, accessed 26 April 2024.