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 and Other Views from Pulpit Hill 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Oban and Other Views from Pulpit Hill’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Recto:
Oban and Other Views from Pulpit Hill 1831
D26942
Turner Bequest CCLXXIV 4
Pencil on white wove paper, 91 x 153 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Oban’ centre
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘4’ top right running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXIV – 4’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan have identified the sketch across the centre of this page, inscribed ‘Oban’ by Turner, as depicting the view of the town from the south, probably from Pulpit Hill.1 Turner sketched the same view in the Staffa sketchbook (Tate D26879; Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 79a) which broadly matches the sketch at the centre of the page. We therefore look across Oban Bay to the cliffs to the north of Oban, with Dunollie Castle on a headland beyond the bay; the castle and headland are together represented as three steps. To the left of the castle are Maiden Island and the coast of Kerrera.
The two sketches above and below the Oban drawing are less easy to identify, though they are likely to have also been made from the top of Pulpit Hill, and therefore may be views of Mull (left) and the Morvern Hills (right).
For references to further sketches of Oban, see the Staffa sketchbook (Tate D26588; Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 58a).

Thomas Ardill
February 2010

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner on the Isle of Skye 1831’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [folio 5].

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Oban and Other Views from Pulpit Hill 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-and-other-views-from-pulpit-hill-r1135316, accessed 24 April 2024.