With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled much this page with descriptions of the ruins of Château Gaillard, perched on its steep eminence some one hundred metres above the Seine. Sketches from a low vantage of the twelfth-century castle keep, complete with its scalloped encircling wall, occupies the top right and left-hand corners of the page. Special attention has been paid on the right-hand side to the winding of a steeply ascending flight of steps, terminating in one of the fortress’s heavily defended portals. In the bottom right-hand corner are described the remnants of the outer bailey with its stout round towers. The bottom right-hand quadrant features a wide view of the surrounding terrain with the river meandering off to a hilly 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.
