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, Loire Valley 1826

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Tours, Loire Valley’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 10 Recto:
Tours, Loire Valley 1826
D23264
Turner Bequest CCXLIX 10
Pencil on white laid paper, 103 x 153 mm
Partial watermark of bunch of grapes
Inscribed by Turner ‘Saint Symphorien’ towards bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘10’ bottom right, descending vertically, ‘266’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXLIX 10’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled this page with drawings of Tours. At the centre of the page can be seen the ruins of the bridge of Eudes with the cathedral rising in the distance.1 Above this is a smaller study of the right bank of the Loire looking in the direction of the eighteenth-century bridge. This is one of a substantial number of pages featuring sketches of the city and its environs 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; see especially Tate D20256 (Turner Bequest CCXXI W). 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);2 see Tate impressions T04685–T04688.

John Chu
May 2015

1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp.223, 236.
2
Luke Herrmann, Turner Prints: The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 1990, pp.171–83.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Tours, Loire Valley 1826 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-loire-valley-r1185101, accessed 16 May 2024.