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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Sketches of Bracklinn Falls, One with Bracklinn Bridge 1834

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 12 Recto:
Two Sketches of Bracklinn Falls, One with Bracklinn Bridge 1834
D26733
Turner Bequest CCLXXII 35a
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 184 x 117 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Edward Croft-Murray ‘12’ top left running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the book in the usual orientation, and with the page turned to the left, are two views of the Bracklinn Falls at the Keltie Water, on the hill north-east of Callander. The sketch drawn with the page turned to the left is, as David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan have identified, a view downstream from the west bank of the burn.1 The other, however, is not (as they suggest) a view downstream from the east bank,2 but a view upstream with Bracklinn Bridge over the gorge, and with one of the mountains to the north (perhaps Ben Vorlich) outlined at the top of the sketch. The bridge, since rebuilt, is depicted more clearly on folio 10 (D26735; CCLXXII 36a). There is a view downstream towards the bridge from the east bank on the reverse of this page (folio 12 verso; D26732; CCLXXII 35), indicating that Turner used the bridge to cross the water and make sketches from both sides.
Turner made a number of sketches of the waterfalls during a visit from Callander; see folio 33 (D26741; CCLXXII 39a) for references.

Thomas Ardill
November 2010

1
Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan 1990, Vol.10 No.2, p.26.
2
Ibid.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Two Sketches of Bracklinn Falls, One with Bracklinn Bridge 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-two-sketches-of-bracklinn-falls-one-with-bracklinn-bridge-r1136389, accessed 23 April 2024.