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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Loch Long Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Sketches of the Firth of Forth near Alloa, Including Alloa Tower 1831

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sketches of the Firth of Forth near Alloa, Including Alloa Tower’ 1831 (Inside back cover of sketchbook)
Inside back cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Back Cover:
Sketches of the Firth of Forth near Alloa, Including Alloa Tower 1831
D41132
Pencil on off-white laid writing paper, 158 x 101 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ?‘Mars Twr’ bottom inverted
Inscribed in brown ink by H.S. Trimmer, his endorsement of the sketchbook ‘No.377. | 23 leaves of very slight pencil sketches | [signed] H.S. Trimmer’ top
Inscribed in pencil by John Prescott Knight ‘J.P.K.’ and by Charles Lock Eastlake ‘C.L.E.’ top right
Inscribed in pencil by A.J. Finberg ‘CCLXXI’ top left
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXI’ top centre
Blindstamped with the Turner Bequest stamp upper centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Although Finberg numbered this sketchbook from the other end, the executors of Turner’s Bequest realised that it should indeed be considered as starting here on the inside cover.1 The sketchbook therefore opens with a drawing made during Turner’s boat trip along the Firth of Forth towards Stirling. While Finberg identified some of the sites sketched on this trip, David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan carried out a more thorough study of the ten pages (folios 21–24 verso and inside back cover; D26659–D26666, D41132), and wrote an account of the journey in an article published in Turner Studies.2 Much of that article proposed an itinerary that Wallace-Hadrill later rejected in an unpublished article,3 but the identifications remain extremely useful.
The Turner Studies article proposed that Turner left Edinburgh on the Dunfermline coach on 16 August 1831, crossing the Firth of Forth at South Queensferry by ferry to North Queensferry, and visiting Dunfermline before returning to North Queensferry to begin a journey up the river to Stirling.4 The Dunfermline sketches are in the Stirling and the West sketchbook (Tate D26436– D26618; D41082–D41083; complete; Turner Bequest CCLXX). We therefore begin to follow Turner’s trip along the Forth here, on the inside cover of the present sketchbook.
With the page turned so that the gutter is to the left, there is a rough sketch of a bank of the Forth with a building. The inscription, something like ‘Mars Twr’, refers to Alloa Tower which was the residence of the Earls of Mars in Alloa on the north bank of the Forth. Only the top of the tower with its three turrets is visible above the river bank, the trees and the other objects in the foreground. To the left of the sketch is a tiny drawing of the top of another tower. This may be the ruined Dunmore Tower (also called Elphinstone or Airth Tower), which stands on the Dunmore Estate near Dunmore on the south bank of the Forth (see folio 21 verso; D26660). Otherwise it may be one of several other towers that Turner sketched from his boat on the Forth: Clackmannan Tower (folio 21 verso), or the tower of the Old Kirk in Alloa (folio 22 verso; D26662).
With the page inverted are four rough sketches of banks of the Forth. Judging by the height of the hills, at least some of these are likely to be looking north towards the Orchil Hills. The second sketch down may include a rainbow, indicated by two parallel arcs. Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan noted rain clouds on folios 21 and 24 (D26659, D26664).5

Thomas Ardill
October 2009

1
A.J. Finberg’s numbering has been retained for the folio sequence, however, to avoid confusion; Finberg 1909, II, pp.872–3.
2
Dr David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner’s Sketches North of Stirling’, Turner Studies: His Art and Epoch 1775–1851, Summer 1990 vol.10 no.1, pp.15–16.
3
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, MS. ‘1834 Tour’, unpublished notes, circa 1990–2, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain. See also Tour of Scotland for Scott’s Prose Works 1834 Tour Introduction.
4
Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan 1990, p.15.
5
Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan 1990, pp.15–16.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Sketches of the Firth of Forth near Alloa, Including Alloa Tower 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2009, 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-firth-of-forth-near-alloa-including-alloa-r1135104, accessed 30 June 2024.