With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled this page with a northerly view of Château Gaillard, perched on its steep eminence some one hundred metres above the Seine. The top of the page is dominated by a description of the ruins of the twelfth-century castle descending towards the associated villages of Les Andelys in the bottom left-hand corner. The position of the needle-like spire of the Church of Saint-Sauveur at Petit Andely is recorded just at the base of the hill.
Of all the Seine valley sights, Château Gaillard and the local villages of Les Andelys were the subject of particular study in this sketchbook. For a list of associated sketches in the volume, see the entry for folio 51 verso (
D23982; Turner Bequest CCLIV 51a). For the watercolours of this landmark in the Turner Bequest that the artist worked up with a view to engraved reproduction, see Tate
D24678 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 113) and
D24692 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 127). These culminated in two engravings in the 1835 volume of
Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as
Rivers of France); see Tate impressions
T04708 and
T04709.
