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

The five sketches of shorelines on this page may be views of the Beauly Firth and Moray Firth from either Inverness or Kessock, as suggested by David Wallace-Hadrill.1 At the top of the page (near the page gutter) are two sketches of a shoreline with buildings. The left sketch has in the foreground a sailing boat heading towards the far shore, something that is also seen in a sketch of Inverness from North Kessock on folio 9 verso (D27061), suggesting that this could be another sketch of the same boat. The sketch beneath this is labelled ‘3’, and therefore relates in some way to the two sketches beneath, labelled ‘2’ and ‘1’. Janet Carolan has suggested that the three sketches may form a single panorama,2 although her suggestion that these are sketches of Dornoch Firth is less convincing to the present author.

The bottom sketch, which is inverted, carries an inscription that Wallace-Hadrill has read as ‘Lentran’ referring either to a small settlement or to Lentran Point on the southern shore of the Beauly Firth,3 though this is doubtful. There are further sketches of Beauly Firth on folios 9 and 13 (D27060, D27067).