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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Scotland 1818-20 > Scotch Antiquities Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Tantallon Castle and Bass Rock from the East 1818

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Tantallon Castle and Bass Rock from the East’ 1818
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 8 Verso:
Tantallon Castle and Bass Rock from the East 1818
D13598
Turner Bequest CLXVII 8a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 186 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Grey’ upper centre left; L[...] of R’ centre left; ‘Sand’ bottom left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn across two sketchbook pages (continuing on folio 9; D13599; CLXVII 8b) is the view upon which Turner based his watercolour, Tantallon Castle, 1821 (Manchester City Galleries),1 for the Provincial Antiquities. Finberg regarded the sketch on folios 5 verso–6 (D13593–D13594; CLXVII 5a–6) as the basis of the design,2 and indeed it was that sketch that provided the details of the castle, but it is the present drawing that forms the viewpoint and composition.
Standing on an outcrop of rocks known as the Gegan which fills the foreground, and from which Turner also sketched Bass Rock (Bass Rock and Edinburgh sketchbook Tate D13326; Turner Bequest CLXV 3a), we look towards Tantallon Castle, which is perched on a headland. Filling half of the present page at the left and dominating the foreground, the cliff wall gives the castle and island a sense of distance and scale. The Bass Rock (inscribed ‘Bass’) emerges from above an upward sloping shelf of rock to the left. From this viewpoint we look up at the castle, which appears desolate, but imposing, stranded on its jutting headland, with the sea brought much closer to the viewer, emphasising its relationship with the castle. In the final design Turner exaggerated these features by shifting the castle further out to sea, and showing the waves crashing against the rocks, throwing up spray and creating pools in the foreground.
There are small pale brown marks at the top and bottom right and a faint blue ink mark at the bottom right, which are mirrored on folio 9.

Thomas Ardill
February 2008

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.426 no.1067.
2
Finberg 1909, I, p.485, CLXVII 8a.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Tantallon Castle and Bass Rock from the East 1818 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2008, 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-tantallon-castle-and-bass-rock-from-the-east-r1132146, accessed 21 November 2024.