Joseph Mallord William Turner

Saumur, Loire Valley

c.1828

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Loose Studies of Northern France
Medium: Graphite, watercolour, gouache and pen and watercolour on paper
Dimensions: Support: 131 × 186 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D24766
Turner Bequest CCLIX 201

Display caption

For this sketch Turner positioned himself so that he could make the side of the bridge curve round and fill the entire foreground of the picture.

Gallery label, September 1992

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Catalogue entry

This view of Saumur from the Pont de la Croix-Verte is one of several depictions of this riverside town in gouache and watercolour on blue paper which Turner worked up after his 1826 tour of the Loire Valley.1 See the Introduction to this section for a list of comparable studies.

Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp.106, 107.

Technical Notes:

The sheet belongs to a batch of blue paper with red fibres used by Turner made by George Steart of Bally, Ellen and Steart at De Montault Mill, Coombe Down, Bath. 1 Another sheet from this batch bears an 1828 watermark.

Ibid., p.238.

Verso:

Inscribed in pencil with the note ‘CCLIX . 201’ at centre of the bottom edge of the sheet.

John Chu
March 2016

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