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 > Loire, Tours, Orleans and Paris ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Tours; Cave Dwelling, Loire Valley 1826

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Tours; Cave Dwelling, Loire Valley’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Recto:
Tours; Cave Dwelling, Loire Valley
D23252
Turner Bequest CCXLIX 4
Pencil on white laid paper, 103 x 153 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘4’ bottom right, descending vertically, ‘266’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXLIX 4’ bottom left descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled the lower half of this page with a westerly view of Tours. This is one of a substantial number of sketches of Tours in this volume, a list of which is provided in the sketchbook introduction. Turner subsequently used these drawings as the basis for multiple colour studies and finished watercolours on blue paper with a view to engraved reproduction. These culminated in four printed illustrations for Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France);1 see Tate impressions T04685–T04688.
The small sketch in the upper half of the page has been identified as a depiction of one of the cave dwellings distinctive to this stretch of the Loire Valley.2 Turner subsequently worked up a colour study of an interior one of these caves on blue paper; see Tate D23240 (Turner Bequest CCXLVIII 46).

John Chu
May 2015

1
Luke Herrmann, Turner Prints: The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 1990, pp.171–83.
2
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p. 236.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Tours; Cave Dwelling, Loire Valley by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 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-tours-cave-dwelling-loire-valley-r1185089, accessed 26 April 2024.