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 > Givet, Mézières, Verdun, Metz, Luxemburg ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Overlapping Sketches of Hills and Buildings, Including Two of the Roche à Bayard 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Overlapping Sketches of Hills and Buildings, Including Two of the Roche à Bayard’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Recto:
Overlapping Sketches of Hills and Buildings, Including Two of the Roche à Bayard 1839
D28167
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 1
Pencil on cream laid writing paper, 168 x 101 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘1’ bottom right
Stamped in black ink ‘CCLXXXVIII–1’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner has roughly marked out two views of Dinant’s Roche à Bayard, a giant monolith which rises loftily at the bank of the Meuse. The rock is identified by its elongated, almost conical, form and sharply tapering point. Corresponding inscriptions are found on the folio opposite, the inside front cover (Tate D41087). For other depictions of the Roche à Bayard see the Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook of 1824 (Tate D19661; Turner Bequest CCXVI 56) and a colour drawing of 1839 taken on blue paper with gouache, pen and ink and watercolour (Tate D20229; Turner Bequest CCXX V).
There appears to be a small landscape sketch at the top right, produced by Turner with the sketchbook orientated horizontally and then squared off. An architectural feature has also been added at bottom right.

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Overlapping Sketches of Hills and Buildings, Including Two of the Roche à Bayard 1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 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-overlapping-sketches-of-hills-and-buildings-including-two-of-r1150444, accessed 20 April 2024.