Lanterne de Démosthène at Saint-Cloud, Île-de-France

1832

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Seine and Paris Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 174 x 117 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D23902
Turner Bequest CCLIV 11 a

Catalogue entry

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled the lower half of this page with the panoramic view across the Seine valley as seen from the Château de Saint-Cloud, some seven miles west of central Paris. This location is given away by the description of the Lanterne de Démosthène on the left-hand side of the page which was a Napoleonic folly erected within the palace pleasure grounds.1 Cursorily drawn groups of figures occupy the foreground while one of the long, arched bridges of Saint-Cloud or nearby Sèvres traverses the river in the distance. For the watercolour of the Lanterne which Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24697 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 132). This led to an engraving 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 impression T05619.

A list of pages in the sketchbook featuring Saint-Cloud is provided in the entry for folio 17 verso (D23914; Turner Bequest CCLIV 17a).

John Chu
July 2014

Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, pp.55, 223–8.

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