Joseph Mallord William Turner

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled this page with two views of the riverside town of Brienne-le-Château, situated around one hundred miles east of Paris. The grand eighteenth-century country house can be seen perched on a hill to the left-hand side of each view. Napoleon studied at the military academy close by, so the site was of particular interest to the artist as he sought subjects to illustrate a new edition of Walter Scott’s Life of Napoleon Buonaparte (1834–36). This drawing contributed one of the volume’s engraved illustrations; see Tate impression T04969. A list of pages in the present volume featuring this subject is provided in the sketchbook Introduction.