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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern France 1832 > Loose Studies of Paris and the Seine > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?The Gateway at Troyes, Northern France c.1832

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?The Gateway at Troyes, Northern France’ c.1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
?The Gateway at Troyes, Northern France c.1832
D24603
Turner Bequest CCLIX 38
Gouache and watercolour on blue paper, 141 x 191 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘38’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLIX 38’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner worked gouache and watercolour paints onto this sheet of blue paper to depict an urban scene with an arch in the foreground. The broad brush-work here renders the subject rather generic although Art historian Ian Warrell has ventured that the scene may represent the gateway at Troyes, located to the south-east of Paris on the River Seine. Certainly, Turner took an interest in this town around this time as he looked for material for the upcoming Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France).1 For the finished watercolour of this location, see Tate D24691 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 126).
1
W[illiam] G[eorge] Rawlinson, The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., London 1908, vol.II, pp.264–76 nos.453–92.
Technical notes:
The verso of the sheet is catalogued separately under the entry for Tate D40067.

John Chu
August 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘?The Gateway at Troyes, Northern France c.1832 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-gateway-at-troyes-northern-france-r1173075, accessed 25 April 2024.