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 Blois, Loire Valley 1826

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Blois, Loire Valley’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 12 Recto:
Blois, Loire Valley 1826
D23268
Turner Bequest CCXLIX 12
Pencil on white laid paper, 153 x 103 mm
Partial watermark of bunch of grapes
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Porte Royale’ centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘12’ top right, ‘266’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXLIX 12’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner filled the upper half of this page with small cursory sketches which have been tentatively identified as depictions of the Château de Montcontour close to Tours.1 At the bottom of the page, inverted in relation to the drawings above, is a sketch of Blois, located some thirty-five miles further up the River Loire. This is one of a substantial number of pages depicting Blois 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 D24712 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 147). These culminated in 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 T04681, T04682.

John Chu
May 2015

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

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Blois, 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-blois-loire-valley-r1185105, accessed 16 May 2024.