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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled this page with drawings taken around Saumur on the banks of the River Loire. The hillside buildings sketched on the right-hand side of the page have been traced to the river cliffs around that city.1Running vertically up the left-hand side of the page is a sketch of one the cave dwellings which are a particular feature of Saumurois countryside. This drawing continues onto folio 45 recto opposite (D23238; Turner Bequest CCXLVIII 45). Several pages in this volume feature these distinctive habitations; a list of these drawings is included in the sketchbook introduction. Turner subsequently worked up a colour study of one of these caves on blue paper; see Tate D23240 (Turner Bequest CCXLVIII 46).