With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled this page with a view of the medieval Château Gaillard as seen from the immediate north. As the shattered stone hulk of the castle rises up towards the top left-hand corner of the page, the Seine can be seen in the bottom right-hand quadrant, meandering some one hundred metres below towards the southerly horizon.
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.
