Joseph Mallord William Turner

Soldiers Drinking in a Café, ? Nantes

c.1826–8

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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
Watercolour, gouache and pen and watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Support: 140 × 190 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D40080
Turner Bequest CCLIX 263b

Catalogue entry

The headdresses of the women in this scene of soldiers drinking in a café locate the scene to Northern France. It is rendered on a heavy blue paper and with a palette of colours identical to a series of depictions of Nantes which Turner worked up in watercolour and gouache after his 1826 visit to the city, apparently in a single painting session.1
1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p.238.
Technical Notes:
The sheet belongs to a batch of heavy 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
1
Ibid. p.238.
Verso:
Inscribed in pencil with the note ‘CCLIX – 263(b)’ in bottom centre of the sheet. Stamped in black with the Turner Bequest monogram and with ‘CCLIX – 263 b’ in the centre of the sheet.

John Chu
March 2016

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