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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Inverness Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Steeple of Inverness Tollbooth 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Steeple of Inverness Tollbooth’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 8 Recto:
The Steeple of Inverness Tollbooth 1831
D27058
Turner Bequest CCLXXVII 8
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 104 x 163 mm
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘8’ bottom left descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXVII 8’ bottom left descending
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner has drawn the tower of Inverness Tollbooth in two halves, with the spire to the left and the steeple to the right. He perhaps started with the spire, before realising that there was not enough space on the page to include the steeple in a single sketch. The view is from the Castle Hill, as in a sketch on folio 3 verso (D27049). That sketch includes the Tollbooth, but only as a faint outline. The current sketch may therefore be a study associated with that sketch.
See folio 2 (D27047) for more information about Turner’s sketches of Inverness.

Thomas Ardill
April 2010

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘The Steeple of Inverness Tollbooth 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-the-steeple-of-inverness-tollbooth-r1135424, accessed 18 May 2024.