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

With the sketchbook in the portrait format are two views of Canongate on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, as indicated by Turner’s note ‘Canongate E’.1 The first at the top of the page looks west up the Royal Mile, with the Tolbooth on the right recognisable by its spire and the clock overhanging the street. It is depicted again in the sketch below from a different angle, and is depicted from closer to and in more detail on folio 1 verso (D26096); there is also a view of it on folio 19 verso (D26131).

At the bottom of the page is the inscription ‘John Knox | House’, referring to the sixteenth-century building associated with the Protestant Reformer John Knox (1510–1572), which stands on Netherbow a little further up the Royal Mile to the west. There are two sketches of the house on folios 18 verso and 19 (D26129, D26130).

With the sketchbook turned to the right, above the John Knox inscription, is a quick sketch of a small sailing vessel with a figure rowing or steering with an oar, and beneath is a rough outline of the coast. These are some of the many coastal sketches scattered throughout this book. They were probably made during Turner’s return from Edinburgh by sea; see Edinburgh sketchbook 1834 Introduction.

The brown stain in the page gutter and at the bottom left may have bled through from the glue on the flyleaf (folio 1), though there are also signs of water damage on several pages of this book.