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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Cuillins at the Head of Loch Scavaig from the South 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Cuillins at the Head of Loch Scavaig from the South’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 79 Recto:
The Cuillins at the Head of Loch Scavaig from the South 1831
D26592
Turner Bequest CCLXX 79
Pencil on white wove paper, 201 x 125 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘B Bhen’ upper centre
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘79’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXX – 79’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Across this page and continued on folio 78 verso (D26591) are five sketches that have been identified as the head of Loch Skavaig on Skye as seen from a boat to the south.1 Turner travelled up Loch Scavaig to reach Loch Coruisk by boat from Elgol, and returned the same way. There are sketches of Loch Scavaig scattered throughout this sketchbook (see folio 38; D26510), but the concentration of sketches on the present page indicates the extent of Turner’s interest in the Cuillin Mountains as seen from the water.
The five sketches, as well as a sixth at the left of folio 78 verso and perhaps a seventh at the right of the present page, are of the same view, and show the southern end of the Cuillins range with the entrance to Loch Coruisk at the centre bordered by Gars-bheinn at the left and Sgurr na Stri and the right. At the very right is the mighty Bla Bheinn, seen more clearly in the second sketch from the top where it is inscribed ‘B Binn’, and in the sketch at the left of 78 verso where the outline is more carefully delineated.
Boxed off at the top right of the page, drawn with the sketchbook turned to the left, is another sketch of mountains. It is possible that this view was made from closer to the entrance to Loch Coruisk, as Turner alighted at the landing stage by the Scavaig River which leads to the loch. Two dark marks just left of centre may be figures, perhaps members of Turner’s party who were already scrambling over the rocks to reach Coruisk.

Thomas Ardill
March 2010

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner on the Isle of Skye 1831’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [folio 17].

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘The Cuillins at the Head of Loch Scavaig from the South 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-cuillins-at-the-head-of-loch-scavaig-from-the-south-r1135026, accessed 19 December 2024.