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Lot Essay
The present unpublished vignette is a view of Newark Castle from a distance, and was possibly an unexecuted design commissioned by Robert Cadell for his 1834-6 series, the Miscellaneous Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) (where the Castle is described in Provincial Antiquities and figures in Tales of a Grandfather) or, more likely, for Cadell’s 2nd edition of Lockhart's Life of Scott, 1839.
Turner visited Newark Castle, in Selkirkshire between Philiphaugh and Broadmeadows on the River Yarrow, on 7 August 1831 with the publisher Robert Cadell (1788-1849). Turner, as Cadell recorded in his diary, ‘took sketches of Newark Castle in all directions’ and these can be found in the Abbotsford Sketchbook, Tate Gallery, London, see D 26066 CCLXVII 79 [upper] and D 26083 CCLXVII 26083 87a, illustrated online and in G. Finley, Landscapes of Memory, Turner as Illustrator to Scott, London, 1980, p. 115, fig. 45. Turner and Cadell walked along the Yarrow towards Broadmeadows, where Sir Walter Scott’s son was waiting with a phaeton to drive the artist and publisher home via Philiphaugh and Selkirk. Three sketches were made from the phaeton including the one that Turner used as the basis of a watercolour design for the title-page showing the Castle, (where Scott’s famous poem ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’ is set) in vol. VI of Cadell’s edition of Scott’s Poetical Works, circa 1832 (private collection), see J. Piggott, Turner’s Vignettes, London, 1993, pp. 99 and 109, no. 81. Newark Castle stands on a bank on a bend in the river, and behind the castle is the outline of Parnaissie Hill. There is a sketch of Newark Castle from the North, which shows the Castle from a similar angle as in the present watercolour, in the Berwick Sketchbook, 1831 and a drawing of the carriage travelling along a wooded path in the same sketchbook, TBCCLXV 11 and TBCCLXV 16a respectively. Turner drew Newark Castle again in the Edinburgh sketchbook of 1834.
Finley, op.cit. describes in detail Turner’s visit to Abbotsford in 1831 to make sketches and the plans made by Scott and Cadell for the images (oblong landscape frontispieces and more symbolic vignettes for the engraved title-pages) along with Cadell’s visits to places with Turner or also with Scott himself if he was well enough. Finley, op.cit. pp. 160-1 notes that Turner commemorated the protagonists in his Abbotsford visit in these illustrations, ‘for Turner and that small circle with whom the artist was associated at Abbotsford they were charged with a special, private significance'. In the present watercolour it is just possible to make out the outline of a carriage at the end of the avenue of trees, an echo of the carriage carrying Scott, Cadell and Turner which appears in the foreground of the vignette, Smailholme Tower, executed not for publication but for presentation to Scott, see Piggott, op.cit., p. 78, illustrated in colour and p. 88, no. 42. Another example of the personal nature of these vignettes is Bemerside Tower, Piggott, op.cit., p. 88, no. 41 which shows the three men walking in the grounds by the great Spanish chestnut tree.
Likely connotations of the Selkirkshire landscape and Newark Castle in the vignette from passages in Lockhart’s Life of Scott, typical of Turner’s associative habit of mind, are that Scott was the very conscientious Sheriff of Selkirkshire (principal judge) from 1799 until his death and was the close friend and correspondent of Charles Montagu-Scott, 4th Duke of Buccleuch (1772-1819) and his Duchess. The Duke was the owner of Newark Castle and the surrounding lands (with 'seigneurial rights’ over Scott’s Abbotsford). ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’ gives a fanciful account of an incident in the ancestral history of the Duke (and of Sir Walter Scott himself), see J G. Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart, 1839, e.g., vol. II, p. 211; vol. III, p. 340 and vol. V, p. 193). Turner’s emblem of the dogs and sporting gun below presumably refers to the hunting, shooting, and fishing enjoyed by Scott and the gentry on the Duke’s land – Scott’s own sporting guns (as in the vignette) were in the famous Armoury at Abbotsford.
Other details in the present watercolour relate it to other vignettes executed to accompany Scott’s works: the tall trees which frame and encircle the view were used again by Turner in Chiefswood Cottage, for Cadell’s, Scott’s Miscellaneous Prose Works, 1834, vol. XVIII, (Wilton 1118), Piggott, op.cit., p. 99, no. 102. The sportsman’s emblem of the two dogs in the foreground references Maida, the celebrated favourite dog of Scott; and their pose seem to be traced in outline (reversed) from the two counterpoised dogs' heads and bodies in Landseer's painting A Scene at Abbotsford (Tate, London) engraved in The Keepsake,1820, (which also contained an engraving after Turner) with a memorial panegyric on the dog by Scott himself (p. 258, seq.).
We are grateful to Dr Jan Piggott, F. S. A., for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.
Turner visited Newark Castle, in Selkirkshire between Philiphaugh and Broadmeadows on the River Yarrow, on 7 August 1831 with the publisher Robert Cadell (1788-1849). Turner, as Cadell recorded in his diary, ‘took sketches of Newark Castle in all directions’ and these can be found in the Abbotsford Sketchbook, Tate Gallery, London, see D 26066 CCLXVII 79 [upper] and D 26083 CCLXVII 26083 87a, illustrated online and in G. Finley, Landscapes of Memory, Turner as Illustrator to Scott, London, 1980, p. 115, fig. 45. Turner and Cadell walked along the Yarrow towards Broadmeadows, where Sir Walter Scott’s son was waiting with a phaeton to drive the artist and publisher home via Philiphaugh and Selkirk. Three sketches were made from the phaeton including the one that Turner used as the basis of a watercolour design for the title-page showing the Castle, (where Scott’s famous poem ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’ is set) in vol. VI of Cadell’s edition of Scott’s Poetical Works, circa 1832 (private collection), see J. Piggott, Turner’s Vignettes, London, 1993, pp. 99 and 109, no. 81. Newark Castle stands on a bank on a bend in the river, and behind the castle is the outline of Parnaissie Hill. There is a sketch of Newark Castle from the North, which shows the Castle from a similar angle as in the present watercolour, in the Berwick Sketchbook, 1831 and a drawing of the carriage travelling along a wooded path in the same sketchbook, TBCCLXV 11 and TBCCLXV 16a respectively. Turner drew Newark Castle again in the Edinburgh sketchbook of 1834.
Finley, op.cit. describes in detail Turner’s visit to Abbotsford in 1831 to make sketches and the plans made by Scott and Cadell for the images (oblong landscape frontispieces and more symbolic vignettes for the engraved title-pages) along with Cadell’s visits to places with Turner or also with Scott himself if he was well enough. Finley, op.cit. pp. 160-1 notes that Turner commemorated the protagonists in his Abbotsford visit in these illustrations, ‘for Turner and that small circle with whom the artist was associated at Abbotsford they were charged with a special, private significance'. In the present watercolour it is just possible to make out the outline of a carriage at the end of the avenue of trees, an echo of the carriage carrying Scott, Cadell and Turner which appears in the foreground of the vignette, Smailholme Tower, executed not for publication but for presentation to Scott, see Piggott, op.cit., p. 78, illustrated in colour and p. 88, no. 42. Another example of the personal nature of these vignettes is Bemerside Tower, Piggott, op.cit., p. 88, no. 41 which shows the three men walking in the grounds by the great Spanish chestnut tree.
Likely connotations of the Selkirkshire landscape and Newark Castle in the vignette from passages in Lockhart’s Life of Scott, typical of Turner’s associative habit of mind, are that Scott was the very conscientious Sheriff of Selkirkshire (principal judge) from 1799 until his death and was the close friend and correspondent of Charles Montagu-Scott, 4th Duke of Buccleuch (1772-1819) and his Duchess. The Duke was the owner of Newark Castle and the surrounding lands (with 'seigneurial rights’ over Scott’s Abbotsford). ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’ gives a fanciful account of an incident in the ancestral history of the Duke (and of Sir Walter Scott himself), see J G. Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart, 1839, e.g., vol. II, p. 211; vol. III, p. 340 and vol. V, p. 193). Turner’s emblem of the dogs and sporting gun below presumably refers to the hunting, shooting, and fishing enjoyed by Scott and the gentry on the Duke’s land – Scott’s own sporting guns (as in the vignette) were in the famous Armoury at Abbotsford.
Other details in the present watercolour relate it to other vignettes executed to accompany Scott’s works: the tall trees which frame and encircle the view were used again by Turner in Chiefswood Cottage, for Cadell’s, Scott’s Miscellaneous Prose Works, 1834, vol. XVIII, (Wilton 1118), Piggott, op.cit., p. 99, no. 102. The sportsman’s emblem of the two dogs in the foreground references Maida, the celebrated favourite dog of Scott; and their pose seem to be traced in outline (reversed) from the two counterpoised dogs' heads and bodies in Landseer's painting A Scene at Abbotsford (Tate, London) engraved in The Keepsake,1820, (which also contained an engraving after Turner) with a memorial panegyric on the dog by Scott himself (p. 258, seq.).
We are grateful to Dr Jan Piggott, F. S. A., for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.