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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Sound of Mull (?) No. 2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Building on the Coast, Perhaps at Arisaig 1831

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Building on the Coast, Perhaps at Arisaig’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Recto:
Building on the Coast, Perhaps at Arisaig 1831
D26957
Turner Bequest CCLXXV 2
Pen and ink and pencil on white wove paper, 91 x 153 mm
Inscribed in brown ink by an unknown hand ‘McInns to serve as cookmaid’ left running vertically
An imprint from the Turner Bequest blindstamp on the outside front cover at the upper right descending vertically
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘2’ top right running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXV – 2’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch of a building on a rocky coast with a rowing boat tied up in the foreground has been associated by David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan with the sketches on folios 2 verso and 3 (D26958, D26959) of a ruin which they liken to Aros Castle on Mull, and Dunollie Castle near Oban.1 Another possibility, however, is that the sketch is related to the drawing on folio 1 verso (D26956) which the authors suggest may be the steamboat passengers’ waiting room at Arisaig. Both sketches depict buildings in a bay with hills behind, and although the building on the present page appears to be smaller than the one on folio 1 verso, it may just be partially hidden by a shoulder of rock in the foreground.

Thomas Ardill
February 2010

1
David Wallace–Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner on the Isle of Skye 1831’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [folio 8].

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Building on the Coast, Perhaps at Arisaig 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-building-on-the-coast-perhaps-at-arisaig-r1135298, accessed 18 May 2024.