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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner Loch Leven and Mountains of Glencoe from North Ballachulish 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Loch Leven and Mountains of Glencoe from North Ballachulish’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Verso:
Loch Leven and Mountains of Glencoe from North Ballachulish 1831
D26755
Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 4a
Pencil on white wove paper, 116 x 186 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Dark’ centre, ‘P[...]’ lower right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Made from North Ballachulish above Loch Leven, this view looks east across the loch to the mountains of Glencoe. Turner has included several figures in the foreground that may, like him, have been waiting for the ferry to cross the loch to South Ballachulish. Across the ‘Dark’ water the mountain peaks are, from left to right, the Pap of Glencoe, Sgorr nam Fiannaidh, An t-Sròn, Stob Coire nam Beith and Stob Coire Sgreamhach.
At the bottom right of the page is a smaller sketch of the same view, this time including several rooftops in the foreground and the sun low above the distant mountains. Turner drew a border around the right half of this sketch, suggesting to David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan that ‘Turner was feeling his way towards a composition for a watercolour though no such watercolour seems to have resulted from it.’1
For references to further views made at Ballachulish, see folio 2 (D26750).

Thomas Ardill
April 2010

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner’s Journey from Oban to Inverness, 1831’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [folio 4].

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Loch Leven and Mountains of Glencoe from North Ballachulish 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-loch-leven-and-mountains-of-glencoe-from-north-ballachulish-r1135113, accessed 22 November 2024.