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

The larger sketch on this page is a view of St Anthony’s Chapel in Holyrood Park drawn on 1 October 1834. Like the sketch on the reverse of this page it was made from the path to the south of the chapel ruin and looks north towards Holyrood Palace and the Firth of Forth with the island of Inch Keith in the distance. The sketch is one in a series made from the craggy slopes of Holyrood Park; see folio 89 verso (D26431).

Turner later utilised the space at the bottom of the page for another sketch. Wallace-Hadrill has assumed that this sketch, drawn with the book inverted, is of Edinburgh, suggesting that the spired building may be Tron Kirk,1 though the resemblance is not great. The main objection with Edinburgh, however, is that the bridge in the sketch has five arches of equal size, while Edinburgh’s North Bridge had three large arches flanked by a narrower arch on either side. No alternative identifications have been suggested.