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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Northern France c.1826-32 > Nantes, Angers and Saumur Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Saumur; Château de Souzay, Loire Valley 1826

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Saumur; Château de Souzay, Loire Valley’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 41 Verso:
Saumur; Château de Souzay, Loire Valley 1826
D23231
Turner Bequest CCXLVIII 41a
Pencil on white laid paper, 110 x 170 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘7’ bottom right, descending vertically, ‘355’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled much of this page with drawings of the area around Saumur on the banks of the River Loire. The central scene has been traced to the east of the city and the towered building in the sketch above identified as the Château de Souzay.1There are several pages of studies of Saumur in this volume which are listed in the sketchbook introduction. Turner subsequently worked up these sketches into colour studies on blue paper with a view to engraved reproduction. These culminated in two prints: one published in The Keepsake annual (1831) and the other in Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France);2 see Tate impressions T05107 and T04689.
1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p. 235.
2
Luke Herrmann, Turner Prints: The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 1990, pp. 164–6, 171–83.
Technical notes:
The lower left-hand corner of the page has been torn and repaired.

John Chu
April 2015

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Saumur; Château de Souzay, Loire Valley 1826 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-saumur-chateau-de-souzay-loire-valley-r1185063, accessed 19 September 2024.