The first of Turner's Loire sketchbooks covers only his journey as far upriver as SAumur, but he did not begin his next book until he was within sight of Tours. To bridge the distance between these two places he used some loose sheets of in order to set down hasty impression of the chateaux he glimpsed from the window of his coach (probably one of the lumbering vehicles known as a dligence). At Langeais he was able to make a more composed study of the chateaux, but those of Usse, Cinq-Mars-le-Pile and Luynes appear as little more than suggestive outlines. Once in Tours, these loose sheets also came in useful for studies of some of the principal buildings.
Gallery label, September 2004
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