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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Sound of Mull (?) No. 1 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Oban 1831

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Oban’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Recto:
Oban 1831
D26940
Turner Bequest CCLXXIV 3
Pencil on white wove paper, 91 x 153 mm
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘3’ bottom left descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXIV – 3’ bottom left descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Oban is here seen from a boat entering or leaving Oban bay with the quay at the right and a church on the hill above.1 The town is recognisable by the bridged outflow just to the left of centre that appears in sketches in the Staffa sketchbook (Tate D26855; Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 58a). There is a very similar sketch to the current one in the Staffa book (Tate D26931; Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 96a). It has been suggested that the present sketch may have been made from the deck of a boat headed for Staffa via the Sound of Mull, while the view in the Staffa book was made on the return journey.2

Thomas Ardill
February 2010

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner on the Isle of Skye 1831’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [folio 29].
2
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner in Argyll in 1831: Inveraray to Oban’, Turner Studies, vol. 11, no.1, Summer 1991, p.28.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Oban 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-r1135314, accessed 25 April 2024.