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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1834 > Edinburgh Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Canongate Tolbooth, Edinburgh 1834

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Canongate Tolbooth, Edinburgh’ 1834
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Verso:
The Canongate Tolbooth, Edinburgh 1834
D26096
Turner Bequest CCLXVIII 1
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 181 mm
Blindstamped with the Turner Bequest stamp upper-centre left descending vertically
Inscribed in pencil ‘3/6’ top right descending vertically
Inscribed with the executors’ endorsements at the upper centre descending vertically: in brown ink by H.S. Trimmer ‘No 236 | Containing | 84 Leaves. Pencil | Sketches – [signed] H.S. Trimmer’; beneath which is signed in brown ink by Charles Turner ‘C Turner’; beneath which are signed in pencil by John Prescott Knight ‘JPK’, and by Charles Lock Eastlake ‘C.L.E.’
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘1’ top left descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXVIII – 1’ top left descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The Tolbooth on the Canongate in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile is seen here at the right of the sketch from the east. This is one of four sketches in this book of the Tolbooth, which belong to a small group of drawings of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh’s Old Town. There are two quick sketches of the Canongate with the Tolbooth on folio 2 (D26097), and a more detailed sketch of it from the west on folio 19 verso (D26131). Further sketches of the Royal Mile are on folios 18 verso–19, 75, 76 and 77 (D26129–D26130, D26237, D26239, D26241).
The inscriptions on this page are not by Turner. ‘3/6’ at the top right of the page is probably the price of this sketchbook (three shillings and six pence), and was therefore written by the bookseller John Thomson of St Andrew Square, Edinburgh, from whom the book was purchased (see Edinburgh sketchbook 1834 Introduction). The other inscriptions are the endorsements of the executors of the Turner Bequest.
This is the verso of folio 1. The recto is a marble-covered flyleaf so was not listed by Finberg; this page is therefore ‘CCLXVIII 1’.1
There are brown stains in the page gutter and at the left of the page, which are a result of the glue on the reverse of this page. The stain in the gutter has also transferred to folio 2.

Thomas Ardill
November 2010

1
Finberg 1909, II, p861.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘The Canongate Tolbooth, Edinburgh 1834 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 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-canongate-tolbooth-edinburgh-r1136024, accessed 22 November 2024.