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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Fort Augustus Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ben Nevis from the Caledonian Canal to the West 1831

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Ben Nevis from the Caledonian Canal to the West’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Recto:
Ben Nevis from the Caledonian Canal to the West 1831
D26969
Turner Bequest CCLXXVI 4
Pencil on off-white laid writing paper, 150 x 184 mm irregular
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘4’ top left running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXVI 4’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Made from the top of Neptune’s Staircase on the Caledonian Canal near Corpach, this sketch looks east towards Ben Nevis, though the outline of the mountain becomes faint as it disappears into the clouds.1 Beneath the mountain is the canal engine house at Corpach where Neptune’s Staircase begins. The roof of the building is sketched again beneath and is included in a sketch on folio 3 (D26968). There is another view of Ben Nevis from halfway up Neptune’s Staircase on folio 2 (D26967), which was the first sketch that Turner made in this book. The Nevis range is also seen in a sketch on folio 5 (D26971).

Thomas Ardill
April 2010

1
Identified by David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner’s 1831 Sketchbook T.B. CCLXXVI Fort Augustus’, [circa 1992–3], Tate catalogue files, [unpaginated].

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Ben Nevis from the Caledonian Canal to the West 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-ben-nevis-from-the-caledonian-canal-to-the-west-r1135334, accessed 25 April 2024.