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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled the most of with page with studies of riverside views punctuated by buildings. Running down the left-hand edge of the page is a sketch of the Basilique Saint-Denis as seen from the River Seine, located some five miles north of central Paris. This volume includes several studies of this edifice, a list of which is included in the sketchbook Introduction. For the watercolour of the subject which Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24686 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 121). This led to an illustration in the 1835 volume of Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France); see Tate impression T04715.