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 Sketches of the Shoreline of the Cromarty Firth 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sketches of the Shoreline of the Cromarty Firth’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 64 Recto:
Sketches of the Shoreline of the Cromarty Firth 1831
D27128
Turner Bequest CCLXXVII 64
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 104 x 163 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Cromarty Firth’ upper left
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘64’ top right running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXVII 64’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The rough lines drawn horizontally across the page are recognisable as Turner’s quick method of sketching the outlines of hills or, in this case, shorelines. However, the sketches overlap and some were drawn with the book inverted, so it is not possible to tell how many sketches there are and to disentangle them. The page, however, is inscribed with what David Wallace-Hadrill has read as ‘Cromarty Firth’.1 During his 1831 tour of Scotland, Turner stayed with his friend and patron Hugh Munro at Novar House near Evanton, on the northern shore of the Cromarty Firth. He may have crossed the firth from Evanton to Cromarty on his return south (see folio 28 verso; D27086). The current sketches were probably made quite rapidly as he travelled along the shore of the Firth, or perhaps as he crossed it.
1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Sketchbook CCLXXVII Inverness’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [unpaginated].
Verso:
Blank

Thomas Ardill
April 2010

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Sketches of the Shoreline of the Cromarty Firth 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-sketches-of-the-shoreline-of-the-cromarty-firth-r1135494, accessed 14 January 2025.