Joseph Mallord William Turner

These drawings of the ruined medieval fortress of Poilvache are a continuation of those on the folio opposite (Tate D19652; Turner Bequest CCXVI 51a). In the uppermost view Turner shows the tiny village of Houx (inscribed as ‘Hahu’), dwarfed at the foot of a vertiginous cliff atop which the castle stands. As the Victorian author and journalist Dudley Costello writes, Poilvache ‘hangs nearly perpendicularly’ over Houx, the village in turn overlooking the Meuse (labelled as ‘Mus’ in Turner’s sketch).1 Various other drawings of the castle fill the page, some diminutive and squared off, others showing the full extent of the ruin’s vast scale.