Turner 's Longships Lighthouse, Land's End, watercolour, c.1835, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles ( Wilton 864); engraved in 1836 by W.R. Smith for Picturesque Views in England and Wales ( Rawlinson 288).
At the time Ruskin was writing, this apparently belonged to H.A.J. Munro of Novar, although it was bought by Ruskin soon afterwards. Modern Painters was issued in May 1843, and the purchase of the watercolour appears in John James Ruskin 's account book ( Ruskin Library, Lancaster University) under June, at a cost of a 100 guineas. Ruskin's great enthusiasm for the work presumably led Munro to relinquish it: 'Taken as a whole,' he wrote in the first edition, 'it is, perhaps, the noblest drawing of Turner 's existing. The engraving is good, as a plate, but conveys not the slightest idea of the original.' Perhaps surprisingly, Ruskin did not keep the watercolour, as it had passed into the collection of Frederick Craven by 1868.