Joseph Mallord William Turner

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled the centre of this page with portal ornamentation of the cathedral at Orléans. This is one of a substantial number of sketches of the city and its environs in this volume, a list of which is provided in the sketchbook introduction. Turner subsequently used these drawings as the basis for multiple colour studies and finished watercolours on blue paper with a view to engraved reproduction. These culminated in a printed illustration for Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France);1 see Tate impression T04679.