Joseph Mallord William Turner

The page contains three sketches:

i. (main sketch) A view at St Omer, looking along the ramparts, towards the west tower of the Cathedral of Notre Dame; inscribed ‘Walls’ below right.
ii. (top right) The Arve Valley looking towards Sallanches from near St Gervais, with the Pointe Percée range to the left, and the Aiguille de Varan to the right; inscribed ‘[?] 16 St Ger’ lower centre and ‘[?] Salnch’ centre.
iii. (below left, inverted, squeezed into a space left within the promenade in the main sketch) a man on horseback facing mountains in an Alpine valley; inscribed ‘[?] Chet’ centre.

The sketch of St Omer appears to have been the first Turner entered in the sketchbook once he decided to work through it in this direction, and is the first of a series at St Omer extending to D29040; Turner Bequest CCXCIII 5. The other two sketches of Alpine valley subjects were clearly squeezed in some haste into the available space at the front of the book. That of St Gervais is the first of a number of the same subject scattered across various pages in this part of the book.