Joseph Mallord William Turner

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled this page with a views of the environs of Saint-Cyr-l’École, located some twelve miles south-west of central Paris. When these drawings were made, the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, founded by Napoleon in 1802, was housed in the grand building with cupolas seen here towards the left-hand edge of the lower sketch. A detail of one of the cupolas is inserted in a circle directly above the drawing of the main building. Turner made numerous sketches of this area in the present volume, a list of which is provided in the sketchbook Introduction. The existence of these studies suggests that Turner considered Saint-Cyr-l’École as a subject for an illustration for a new edition of Walter Scott’s Life of Napoleon Buonaparte (1834–36) although it was not included in the publication in the event.1