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 Notre-Dame, Mézières, from the South-East (Rue Monge), Showing the Porch of the South Transept and Tower, with the Porte de Saint-Julien in the Distance 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Notre-Dame, Mézières, from the South-East (Rue Monge), Showing the Porch of the South Transept and Tower, with the Porte de Saint-Julien in the Distance’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 19 Verso:
Notre-Dame, Mézières, from the South-East (Rue Monge), Showing the Porch of the South Transept and Tower, with the Porte de Saint-Julien in the Distance 1839
D28204
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 19 a
Pencil on cream laid writing paper, 101 x 168 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawing from street level on the Rue Monge, Turner has sketched the porch of the south transept and tower of the Gothic Basilica of Notre-Dame d’Ésperance at Mézières. The artist suggests some of the architectural features and decorative masonry on the portal: the gable, pointed archivolt, tympanum, lintel, jambs and socles. A row of lancet windows lead the eye towards the tower and belfry. The fortified Porte de Saint-Julien is suggested in slight pencil line in the background (see also Tate D28194–D28195; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 14a–15).
This and other sketches of Notre-Dame (Tate D28191, D28193, D28195, D28196, D28199, D28201, D28204; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 13, 14, 15a, 17, 18, 19a) constitute preparatory studies for a gouache and watercolour drawing of Mézières executed on blue paper in 1839 (Tate D24731; Turner Bequest CCLIX 166).

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Notre-Dame, Mézières, from the South-East (Rue Monge), Showing the Porch of the South Transept and Tower, with the Porte de Saint-Julien in the Distance 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-notre-dame-mezieres-from-the-south-east-rue-monge-showing-r1150481, accessed 23 April 2024.