Lot Essay
This is one of the watercolours commissioned from Turner in 1831 by Robert Cadell and Sir Walter Scott as illustrations to the latter's Poetical Works, published in 1834. In response to Cadell's first list of suggested subjects Scott wrote, in a letter of 1 August 1831, 'You have omitted the eve of Saint John, Smaylholm Tower, which is a striking subject very appropriate ...'. Beyond the tower stands Sandy-Knowe Farm, the property of Scott's grandfather and the author's childhood home:
'Then rise those crags, that mountain tower
Which charm'd my fancy's wakening hour.
It was a barren scene and wild
Where naked cliffs were rudely piled;
But ever and anon between
Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green ...'
- Scott, Epistle to William Erskine (Marmion, Canto III)
Turner stayed at Scott's home, Abbotsford, for five days in August 1831 and visited Smailholme, a bit under ten miles away, on 6 August: 'the horses were ordered and well provided with lunch & attended also by the servant James we set off about 1/2 p. 11. for Smallholm ... on our way to Smallholm Sir Walter told Mr. Turner of his ancestor stocking the farm by buying a horse with the herds money - and repeated a good many scraps of Ballads - the day was very fine at this time and towards 7 oclock in the evening. We reached Smallholm about 2 oclock. The horses we put up in the Farm stables - & we journeyed to the Tower. I had some long cracks with Sir Walter as he leant on my arm while Mr. Turner made his sketches particularly about the Prose Works ... Sir Walter sat down, I joined Mr Turner - I returned shortly when we all sat down & had some lunch - after this we journeyed to the Farm house of Sandy Knows, went in & had a second lunch - ... Sir Walter was in great glee - he had evidently set his heart on Turner doing Smallholm & told Mr T. that there was nothing he had more anxiously wished than that he (Mr T.) should do that tower.' - Cadell, 'Abbotsford Diary', 6 Aug. 1831, published G.E. Finley, 1972, pp. 380-1 (For Lockhart's rather different account of the visit, see his Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott, 1900, vol. V, p. 348).
Turner's sketches made on the visit are in the Abbotsford Sketchbook (T.B. CCLXVII, 84a-86), reproduced G.E. Finley, 1980, figs. 38, 40-1, 43. A second watercolour, of the tower from the farm, was engraved by W. Muller in 1839 for Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott and is now at Vassar College, New York (W. 1140: Finley, 1980, pl. 99). Another version of this was sent as a gift to Scott in Spring 1832, when the author was recuperating in Naples (exhibited Aberdeen, Turner in Scotland, 1982, no. 65).
All the vignettes in the series were drawn in decorative cartouches such as that of the present drawing; only in 'Abbotsford', however, was this surround included in the engraving (vol. XII). The flanking figures probably illustrate Scott's 'The Eve of St. John', with on the right the Baron of Smailholme, or his victim and ghostly rival, and on the left the Baron's wife
'Then rise those crags, that mountain tower
Which charm'd my fancy's wakening hour.
It was a barren scene and wild
Where naked cliffs were rudely piled;
But ever and anon between
Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green ...'
- Scott, Epistle to William Erskine (Marmion, Canto III)
Turner stayed at Scott's home, Abbotsford, for five days in August 1831 and visited Smailholme, a bit under ten miles away, on 6 August: 'the horses were ordered and well provided with lunch & attended also by the servant James we set off about 1/2 p. 11. for Smallholm ... on our way to Smallholm Sir Walter told Mr. Turner of his ancestor stocking the farm by buying a horse with the herds money - and repeated a good many scraps of Ballads - the day was very fine at this time and towards 7 oclock in the evening. We reached Smallholm about 2 oclock. The horses we put up in the Farm stables - & we journeyed to the Tower. I had some long cracks with Sir Walter as he leant on my arm while Mr. Turner made his sketches particularly about the Prose Works ... Sir Walter sat down, I joined Mr Turner - I returned shortly when we all sat down & had some lunch - after this we journeyed to the Farm house of Sandy Knows, went in & had a second lunch - ... Sir Walter was in great glee - he had evidently set his heart on Turner doing Smallholm & told Mr T. that there was nothing he had more anxiously wished than that he (Mr T.) should do that tower.' - Cadell, 'Abbotsford Diary', 6 Aug. 1831, published G.E. Finley, 1972, pp. 380-1 (For Lockhart's rather different account of the visit, see his Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott, 1900, vol. V, p. 348).
Turner's sketches made on the visit are in the Abbotsford Sketchbook (T.B. CCLXVII, 84a-86), reproduced G.E. Finley, 1980, figs. 38, 40-1, 43. A second watercolour, of the tower from the farm, was engraved by W. Muller in 1839 for Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott and is now at Vassar College, New York (W. 1140: Finley, 1980, pl. 99). Another version of this was sent as a gift to Scott in Spring 1832, when the author was recuperating in Naples (exhibited Aberdeen, Turner in Scotland, 1982, no. 65).
All the vignettes in the series were drawn in decorative cartouches such as that of the present drawing; only in 'Abbotsford', however, was this surround included in the engraving (vol. XII). The flanking figures probably illustrate Scott's 'The Eve of St. John', with on the right the Baron of Smailholme, or his victim and ghostly rival, and on the left the Baron's wife