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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Likely English, Scottish or Welsh ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Trees, with Distant Towers beyond Water, Perhaps Edinburgh across the Water of Leith c.1820-40

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Trees, with Distant Towers beyond Water, Perhaps Edinburgh across the Water of Leith’ c.1820-40
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Trees, with Distant Towers beyond Water, Perhaps Edinburgh across the Water of Leith c.1820–40
D25360
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 238
Watercolour on white wove paper, 241 x 304 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘238’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 238’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Although painted without pencil underdrawing, the pale, layered silhouettes of the buildings on the skyline beyond a trees and a stretch of bright water are quite precisely defined. Eric Shanes has suggested that the view is of Edinburgh, comparing small pencil drawings in the 1822 King’s Visit to Edinburgh sketchbook (Tate D40687, D17643; Turner Bequest CC inside front cover, 77a),1 showing Edinburgh to the south across the Water of Leith, a ‘favourite view of Turner’s’, as Thomas Ardill remarks in his entry for D17643.
The subject remains a possibility here, although the correlation with the specified sketches in not precise enough to make the identification certain, while the date and intent of this ‘colour beginning’ are open to speculation in relation to Turner’s Scottish topographical work. Tate D25345 and D25407 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 223, 284) in the present section are loosely comparable in their combination of water, trees and distant buildings.
1
See Shanes 1997, p.101.
Technical notes:
There appears to be extensive staining except at the top. There are pencil lines a long way in from the edges, presumably applied by curators at an early date as a guide to ‘crop’ the more focused central area of the composition when mounting it for display.
Verso:
Blank; stained brown except along the top. Inscribed in pencil ‘38’ right of centre, ascending vertically; inscribed in pencil ‘CCLXIII | 238’ bottom right; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCLXIII – 238’ bottom right.

Matthew Imms
August 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Trees, with Distant Towers beyond Water, Perhaps Edinburgh across the Water of Leith c.1820–40 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-trees-with-distant-towers-beyond-water-perhaps-edinburgh-r1184458, accessed 04 November 2025.