JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER R.A. (BRITISH 1775-1851)

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER R.A. (BRITISH 1775-1851) EDINBURGH FROM CALTON HILL Pencil on paper, watermarked J.WHATMAN 1794 (26.5cm x 41cm (10.5in x 16in)) Provenance: Christie's, 4th November 1975, lot 13 Sotheby's 26th March 2004, lot 107 Footnote: Literature: Andrew Wilton, The Life and Works of J. M. W. Turner, 1979, p.339, no.348 Note: Andrew Wilton has suggested that this work may have been part of a now partially dispersed Smaller Fonthill Sketchbook which was in use between 1799-1802. The size of the page and watermark are consistent with other examples from the sketchbook in the British Museum (TB XLVIII, 1-7). This drawing was, therefore, made during Turner's tour of the North of England and Scotland in 1800 and 1801. A. J. Findberg (The Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, 1909, Vol.1, pp.123-4) lists various drawings, not in the British Museum, which he supposed to have come from the The Little Fonthill Sketchbook. Among them is a drawing, entitled Edinburgh from Duddingstone, in the National Gallery of Ireland (Vaughan Bequest. no.2410) The present drawing was used as a preparatory study for a finished watercolour of the same subject exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1804 (TB:LX-H) J.M. W. Turner is one of the most celebrated artists in Britain. Born in Covent Garden in 1775, his prodigious talent was recognised from a young age. As a boy he honed his skills by working as a topographical draughtsman, and earned a position at the Royal Academy of Arts when only fourteen years old. Throughout his career, Turner was as much compelled by the awesome quality of nature as he was by the progression of modernity, and he often painted sweeping panoramas of cities, seas, skies and mountains. He travelled extensively, generating hundreds of sketchbooks which formed the basis for the ethereal watercolours and exquisite oils for which he is best known. This view onto the iconic skyline of Edinburgh's Old Town captures Turner's predisposition for wide, dramatic topographies. The sweeping silhouette of the Royal Mile forms the backbone of the composition, punctuated by the fifteenth-century crown vault of St. Giles' Cathedral, and culminating with Edinburgh Castle perched atop its rocky outcrop. Sir Walter Scott named the view from Calton Hill ‘one of the most magnificent scenes in this romantic city’, and Turner continued to return to the vista throughout his career. This sketch was likely made during Turner's first visit to Edinburgh in 1801, and was the basis of a watercolour exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1804. He also produced illustrations of the view for Walter Scott's ‘Provincial Antiquities and Picturesque Scenery of Scotland’, published in 1818. Turner returned to Edinburgh several times throughout his life to sketch and engage with eminent cultural figures of the time. The great art collector Henry Vaughan (1809-1899) bequeathed his collection of thirty-eight Turner watercolours to the National Galleries of Scotland, on the condition that they be exhibited to the public free-of-charge every January. This tradition has continued for over a hundred years, and the Turner bequest remains one of the most popular features of the Galleries' collection. Turner can therefore be said to occupy a position of unique significance to Edinburgh's cultural heritage.