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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Château de Malmaison, Île-de-France 1832

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Verso:
?Château de Malmaison, Île-de-France 1832
D24169
Turner Bequest CCLVII 1a
Pencil on white laid paper, 175 x 127 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Mal M’ towards top right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled much of this page with views of a grand French house surrounded by formal gardens. The artist’s note ‘Mal M’ towards the top right-hand corner of the page suggests that these sketches were taken at the Château de Malmaison, located some ten miles west of central Paris and former residence of Napoleon’s wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais. Certainly Turner made several sketches of the house in the present volume, a list of which is provided in the sketchbook Introduction. These culminated in an engraved illustration for a new edition of Walter Scott’s Life of Napoleon Buonaparte (1834–36); see Tate impression T04979.

John Chu
January 2015

How to cite

John Chu, ‘?Château de Malmaison, Île-de-France 1832 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2015, 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-chateau-de-malmaison-le-de-france-r1175197, accessed 28 March 2024.