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 > Meuse-Moselle Gouache and Watercolour ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Huy from the West: Bird's-Eye View c.1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Huy from the West: Bird's-Eye View’ c.1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Huy from the West: Bird’s-Eye View c.1839
D20288
Turner Bequest CCXXIII C
Gouache, pen and ink and watercolour on blue wove paper, 140 x 195 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXII C’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner pictures the Belgian city of Huy with agile penmanship. The viewpoint is from high in the surrounding hillside to the west of the city and incorporates Huy’s three celebrated landmarks: the arched bridge over the Meuse, the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame and the citadel.
Turner’s use of gouache and watercolour is sparing here. White, translucent yellow, blue and a little pink are applied roughly to mark out buildings, sections of hillside, and the river.
The gouache is based on a rough pencil sketch in the Spa, Dinant, and Namur sketchbook of c.1839 (Tate D28141; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 52 a). For other gouache drawings of Huy see Tate D20221–D20222, D20226, D20268; Turner Bequest CCXX N–O, S, CCXXII I.
Verso:
Inscribed in red ink (possibly by Ruskin) ‘124?2’ at bottom left; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCXXIII–C’ at bottom left; inscribed in pencil ‘31a’ at centre towards right.

Alice Rylance-Watson
June 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Huy from the West: Bird’s-Eye View c.1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 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-huy-from-the-west-birds-eye-view-r1150986, accessed 26 April 2024.