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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > The Second Meuse-Moselle Tour 1839 > Spa, Dinant and Namur Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Sketches of Louvain from Mont César 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Sketches of Louvain from Mont César’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 7 Recto:
Two Sketches of Louvain from Mont César 1839
D28054
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 7
Pencil on white wove writing paper, 94 x 154 mm
Watermarked ‘[Fe]llows’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘350’ bottom right and ‘7’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXXVII–7’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner depicts two views of Louvain taken from Mont César or the ‘Keizersberg’: a hill in the north of the town around which the city was established.
With the sketchbook orientated horizontally the drawings run across the page parallel to each other. One is considerably more detailed than the other and features a number of spired and towered buildings. The decorative crockets suggested on the left spire could indicate that the building is Louvain’s early Gothic Linen Hall. The buildings to the right are the Town Hall and St Peter’s Church. The landscape sketch on the lower register is summarily and loosely rendered with no clearly discernable identifying features.
For other views of Louvain in this sketchbook see Tate D28044–D28047, D28049, D28050, D28059–D28064; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 2a–3a, 4a, 5, 9a–12.

Alice Rylance-Watson
April 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Two Sketches of Louvain from Mont César 1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-two-sketches-of-louvain-from-mont-cesar-r1150328, accessed 19 April 2024.