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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Scotland 1801-10 > Edinburgh Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Distant View of the Firth of Forth from Corstorphine, with St Bernard's Well in the Right Foreground 1801

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Distant View of the Firth of Forth from Corstorphine, with St Bernard's Well in the Right Foreground’ 1801
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 20 Recto:
Distant View of the Firth of Forth from Corstorphine, with St Bernard’s Well in the Right Foreground 1801
D02837
Turner Bequest LV 20
Pencil on white wove paper, 127 x 195 mm
Partial watermark ‘94 | tman’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LV – 20’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the pages turned horizontally, with a continuation of the trees on folio 19 verso opposite (D02836). It seems that Turner has here distorted the perspective of the view somewhat, in order to create a panorama in the manner of the French landscape painter Claude Lorrain (1604/5–1682) with the circular ‘temple’ built over St Bernard’s Well as a feature. The mineral springs at Stockbridge, a suburb of Edinburgh on the Water of Leith, were discovered in about 1760, and a neo-classical pump house, inspired by the Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli, was designed for Lord Gardenstone by Alexander Naismith and erected in 1789.
Turner must have been delighted to find this ready-made ‘Claudian’ feature in the landscape, but he did not, as far as is known, incorporate it into any of his finished views of the area. Other sketches showing the pump house are on folios 21 verso–22 recto and 51 verso–52 recto (D02840–D02841, D02885–D02886).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Distant View of the Firth of Forth from Corstorphine, with St Bernard’s Well in the Right Foreground 1801 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-distant-view-of-the-firth-of-forth-from-corstorphine-with-st-r1179027, accessed 16 April 2024.