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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner Fort George and Rosemarkie from Rosemarkie Peninsula, the Black Isle 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Fort George and Rosemarkie from Rosemarkie Peninsula, the Black Isle’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 29 Recto:
Fort George and Rosemarkie from Rosemarkie Peninsula, the Black Isle 1831
D27087
Turner Bequest CCLXXVII 29
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 104 x 163 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘5’ ‘3’ bottom
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘29’ top right running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXVII 29’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
At the bottom of the page is a sketch of Fort George as seen from the north.1 This is a much clearer sketch of the view on folio 12 verso (D27066), which was probably made from the Rosemarkie Peninsula on the Black Isle. The current sketch is much clearer than that drawing; Turner shaded the walls of the star-shaped fort to help define its shape. He also inscribed the sketch with the numbers ‘5’ and ‘3’, although it is not clear what these refer to.
The other two sketches on this page show a single view, the middle sketch continuing from the sketch at the top of the page. This is the view north along the hilly coast from Chanonry Point at the end of the peninsula at Rosemarkie. There is a sketch of the peninsula itself on the reverse of this page: folio 29 verso (D27088).

Thomas Ardill
April 2010

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘CCLXXVII Inverness Checklist’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [unpaginated].

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Fort George and Rosemarkie from Rosemarkie Peninsula, the Black Isle 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-fort-george-and-rosemarkie-from-rosemarkie-peninsula-the-r1135453, accessed 20 September 2024.