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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner List of Places on the Meuse between Bazeilles and Dinant 1824

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Recto:
List of Places on the Meuse between Bazeilles and Dinant 1824
D19558
Turner Bequest CCXVI 4
Pencil and pen and red and blue ink on white wove paper, 118 x 78 mm
Inscribed in pencil and pen and red and blue ink by Turner (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed in blue ink by Ruskin ‘4’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCXVI–4’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner has compiled a list of places between Bazeilles in north-eastern France and Dinant in Belgium. The list is continued from the folio opposite (Tate D19557; Turner Bequest CCXVI 3a). The list is transcribed below, with this cataloguer’s approximation of the real place names noted in brackets to the right of the transcription where necessary or possible.
‘Barille L[...]’(Bazeilles)                      ‘?G[...] God [...]’
‘La Reigne Bo’
‘Daigny’
Sedan        P of Cham    F of Lux   K of F City’
Donchery    City | Dukedom Rhiteloise | P of Champaign’
‘Fligneux’ (Fleignux)
‘Vrigne’ (Vrigne-Meuse)
‘Newvion’ (Nouvion-sur-Meuse)
‘Lume’ (Lumes)
‘Meziers’ (now Charleville-Mézières) ‘Palais Royal at | City of Champaign’
‘Genelle’ (Gernelle)
Nou[...]nville Bo’ (Nouzonville)
‘Joigny’ (Joigny-sur-Meuse)
‘Chateaux Regnault Bouillion Bo | and Palace’ (Château Regnault, near Bogny-sur-Meuse)
‘Thitay Bo’ (Thilay)
‘Val Dieux Val Dieu’
‘Anchamp [...]land Village’ (Anchamps)
‘Revin’    ‘City l’[...]m’
‘?Mamise’ (Possibly referring to Ruisseau des Manises, a stream of the Meuse, or Forêt de la Manise)
‘Hargnee’ (Hargnies)
‘Hebbi’ (Haybes)
‘Ladrichamps’ (Landrichamps)
‘Ransenne’ (Rancennes)
With the sketchbook orientated to landscape format, the list continues:
‘Vereu’ (Vireux-Wallerand or Vireux Molhain)
‘Beauring’ (Beauraing)
Givet City’
‘Givet Notre Dame’ (presumably referring to the Eglise Notre Dame in Givet)
‘Fromelles’ (Fromelennes)
‘Her’ (Heer)
‘Her [...]ro’
‘Walzin’
Dinant        Principality of Liege | [...] Bishops of Liege all [?above] to [?France]’
As with Tate D19556–D19557; Turner Bequest CCXVI 3–3a, Turner has made note of duchies and counties next to place names, including: Sedan, in the ‘P[rovince]’ of ‘Cham[pagne]’, under the control of the Dukes of Luxembourg, within the ‘K’ of ‘F’ (possibly the Kingdom of France); Donchery, a city within the duchy of Rethel (a Rethelois territory); ‘Château Regnault’, the thirteenth-century stronghold of the House of La Marck whose later line became the Dukes of ‘Bouillon’ and Rethel; and finally, Dinant, part of the Prince Bishopric of Liège.
Turner’s note next to ‘Meziers’ (Mézières) reminds him of the town’s location within the province of Champagne and also of its ‘Palais Royale’, which may be a reference instead to the Palais de Tournelles at Mézières. This was one of the residences of the Counts and later the Dukes of Rethel; it was restored in the sixteenth century by Louis Gonzaga (1539–1595), 1st Duke of Rethel, who had inherited the dukedom from his wife Henriette de Clèves.1 It was their son Charles (1580–1637) who founded and built Charleville in 1606.2

Alice Rylance-Watson
February 2014

1
‘Histoire de la Ville’, Ville de Charleville-Mézières, accessed 6 February 2014, http://www.charleville-mezieres.fr/Culture-patrimoine-et-jumelages/Le-patrimoine/Histoire-de-la-Ville
2
Ibid.

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘List of Places on the Meuse between Bazeilles and Dinant 1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-list-of-places-on-the-meuse-between-bazeilles-and-dinant-r1174346, accessed 28 March 2024.