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

Drawn near the page gutter with the sketchbook turned to the right is a sketch of St Anthony’s Chapel on the slope of a crag in Holyrood Park. Seen from the path heading up to Arthur’s Seat to the south of the ruined chapel, we look north along the gully in the hills to the chapel with the craggy western shoulder of Whinny Hill to the right. There is little to see in the way of landmarks from this viewpoint, but Turner has suggested buildings to the north-east of the city with a few rows of wavy lines. In the distance is the Firth of Forth with the island of Inch Keith and the distant shore of Fife.

The vertical orientation of the page with a sketch at the top suggests that Turner intended to draw a sequence of sketches on this page. After having made a single sketch, however, he must have decided that he needed a wider space for his next sketch and so turned the page over and drew his next sketch, a view from nearby, on the reverse: folio 86 verso (D26425).

These belong to a series of sketches of Edinburgh from around St Anthony’s Chapel in Holyrood Park; see folio 89 verso (D26431) for further information and references.