Joseph Mallord William Turner

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled much of this page with a panoramic view across Paris from a high vantage. The two west towers of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and the dome of Les Invalides or the Panthéon are just visible at the centre of the scene. Although the foreground is too cursorily drawn for the identification of an immediate location, the neighbouring pages contain drawings of similar landscapes taken around Saint-Cloud some seven miles west of central Paris. ¹ For comparisons, see examples of the watercolours of the riverside scenery around Saint-Cloud which Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time; Tate D24688 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 123), D24689 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 124), and D24697 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 132).