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 > Scotch Lakes Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Bonshaw Tower, with Merkland Cross in the Foreground 1801

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Bonshaw Tower, with Merkland Cross in the Foreground’ 1801
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 177 Verso:
Bonshaw Tower, with Merkland Cross in the Foreground 1801
D03257
Turner Bequest LVI 175a
Pencil on white wove paper, 184 x 114 mm
Partial watermark ‘C Wi | 17’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject is continued on folio 178 recto opposite (D03258; Turner Bequest LVI 176). For other drawings of the tower, see under folio 175 verso (D03253; Turner Bequest LVI 173a).
The Merkland Cross, standing a mile south east of Kirtlebridge, Dumfries and Galloway, was erected in the fifteenth century, traditionally supposed to have commemorated a local military hero, but perhaps intended simply to mark a meeting-place for drovers and other travellers.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Bonshaw Tower, with Merkland Cross in the 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-bonshaw-tower-with-merkland-cross-in-the-foreground-r1179453, accessed 23 April 2024.