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

This sketch, inscribed ‘L Ard’ by Turner, was made from the Aberfoyle Road at the eastern end of Loch Ard.1 Looking west along the length of the loch, the peak of Ben Lomond looms above the water. This view was probably familiar to Turner from engravings, and he is likely to have known the engraving by Edward Frances Finden after George Fennel Robson of Loch Ard, which had been published in 1832 by Charles Tilt for his Landscape Illustrations of the Waverley Novels.2 Turner may have been searching for this view in particular for a potential illustration to Robert Cadell’s proposed new edition of the Waverley Novels: see the Tour of Scotland for Scott’s Prose Works 1834 Tour Introduction.

Of his Loch Ard sketches, many are variations on this view: folios 2 verso–4, 21 verso–22, 23 verso (D26673, D26678, D26677, D26682, D26738, D26737, D26701; CCLXXII 4, 6a, 6, 8a, 38, 37a, 19) and perhaps folios 1 verso, 39 and 40 (D26668, D26680, D26676; CCLXXII 1a, 7a, 5a). There may also be sketches of Loch Ard in the Stirling and Edinburgh sketchbook: Tate D26328 (Turner Bequest CCLXIX 35a). For further information about Turner’s sketches in the Trossachs during this tour, see the Loch Ard Sketchbook Introduction.

There is a separate sketch of distant mountains at the top right of the page, probably those to the south-west of the loch, as seen from the same place. This sketch is separated from the main drawing by a roughly drawn line down the page.

It was presumably the inscriptions on this page and folio 4 (D26682; CCLXXII 8) that led Finberg to name this the Loch Ard sketchbook.