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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1834 > Edinburgh Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner John Knox House, Netherbow, High Street, Edinburgh 1834

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘John Knox House, Netherbow, High Street, Edinburgh’ 1834
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 18 Verso:
John Knox House, Netherbow, High Street, Edinburgh 1834
D26129
Turner Bequest CCLXVIII 18a
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 181 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
At the centre of this view, which looks east along the High Street on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, is the fifteenth-century building known as John Knox House. This was presumably Turner’s object of interest, as it is drawn quite carefully compared to the other buildings which are only roughly sketched. A series of scribbles across the centre of the page may represent figures, carts and stalls laid out on this busy street in Edinburgh’s Old Town.
There is a close-up sketch of the house opposite this one on folio 19 (D26130), and the building can be seen in the background of sketches of the High Street on folios 76 and 77 (D26239, D26241). A sketch on folio 19 verso (D26131) shows the Tolbooth on Canongate nearby.
At the bottom left of the page is the slight continuation of a sketch from folio 19.

Thomas Ardill
November 2010

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘John Knox House, Netherbow, High Street, Edinburgh 1834 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 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-john-knox-house-netherbow-high-street-edinburgh-r1136057, accessed 25 April 2024.