Joseph Mallord William Turner

With the sketchbook orientated to portrait format, Turner has taken a series of small-scale views of Dinant, and at the lowermost register, a sketch of Trier. Those of Dinant feature the bridge, citadel, and Church of Notre-Dame (as seen in D20109–D20110; Turner Bequest CCXVII 16–17) as well as figures and boats on the banks of the Meuse. Turner has drawn a separate and tiny detail of a church to the bottom left of the second of these studies, annotating its tower with the word ‘Bell’. Other inscriptions include ‘Cloaths dry[ing]’, probably a reminder of some of the sights and activities he encountered whilst quayside at Dinant.

Turner took the lowermost sketch of Trier from the left bank of the Meuse near the village of Pallien. The city is seen from a distance and the profiles of its celebrated ecclesiastical buildings are rendered summarily. At left, in the foreground, Turner records a figure driving a cart on the road leading towards the Roman Bridge. Trier is shown again in this sketchbook on Tate D20115; Turner Bequest CCXVII 21.