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

These slight sketches depict the village and castle of Chokier, situated on the north bank of the Meuse between Liège and Huy. Dominating the valley atop a precipitous rock, the chateau, for centuries the seat of the ancient Surlet de Chokier family, is ‘an old building, faced with a modern front of Italian architecture’, according to the travel writer John Murray.1 The eighteenth-century façade belies the building’s thirteenth-century heritage, which is represented by a single remaining medieval tower topped with a conical roof. The village of Chokier stands at foot of the cliff; its church, the Eglise Saint-Marcellin, is situated close to the river’s edge and is identifiable by its tapering spire.2 For more drawings of Chokier and its chateau see Tate D19611, D19613–D19618, D19635–D19636, D20085; Turner Bequest CCXVI 30a, 31a–34, 43–43a, CCXVII 1a.