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

With the page turned horizontally, this sketch centres on the new Highgate Archway with its single lower arch and three upper arches carrying Hornsey Lane across the Great North Road in its cutting. The area was then still largely undeveloped, and the exact viewpoint is not easy to establish, although the rising ground towards the right suggests indicates that this is the Highgate side, making the view towards the south-east in the direction of the City of London, some four miles away. An 1814 watercolour by John Preston Neale (1780–1847; London Metropolitan Archives) shows the Archway in its immediate rural setting, possibly from the same side.

The drawings between folios 218 verso and 227 verso (D09362–D09380; Turner Bequest CXXXI 129a–138a) are all identified or likely Highgate views; they were probably made working in from the back of the book as now foliated. The subject is discussed under folio 128 verso (D09360; Turner Bequest CXXXI 128a), apparently incorrectly isolated from the rest of the sequence by a block of blank leaves.