Joseph Mallord William Turner

For Turner’s visit to Grenoble in 1802 see Introduction to the sketchbook and notes to D04495; Turner Bequest LXXIV 3.

Turner’s label for this drawing is inscribed ‘Ville de Grenoble Pont pour les Carousses Port de France Citadel &c’ [sic]. From the River Isère the artist looks east towards the city; in the left foreground is the Porte de France (built in 1620) and behind it the ramparts running up to the Bastille. The bridge on the right corresponds to the position of the present-day Pont Goutard. The cluster of buildings to its left includes the convent of the Visitation-de-Sainte-Marie d’en-Haut (today the Musée Dauphinoise). The river is bustling with activity and the shadows cast by boats and figures on the water and highlights of white on buildings indicate a bright, sunny day. The Belledonne massif is in the distance. For comments on this subject, the author is grateful to Roland Courtot of the University of Aix-en-Provence.1 For views of the city and river from this sketchbook, with a different, wooden bridge, see the recto, D04506; Turner Bequest 14, and D04508; Turner Bequest LXXIV 15.

In his catalogue notes for Marlborough House, John Ruskin thought this drawing ‘less valuable than most of the series [of Sketches in Savoy and Piedmont], but interesting in the way in which [Turner] climbs from the near building on the right to the fort above, along the winding wall’.2

Verso:

Blank, inscribed by a later hand in pencil ‘no14a Grenoble’