J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

As first identified by art historian Maurice Guillaud, this sketch, executed with the page turned horizontally, depicts the old town of Nice, as viewed from the right bank of the River Paillon. The Paillon has since been culverted but would have been a prominent feature in Nice at the time of Turner’s visit (see under D41043). Visible in the centre is the Pont Vieux (Old Bridge), with the tower of the Convent of Saint-François rising behind it. On the right is the Church of Saint Martin and Saint Augustine, as well as the Lycée, a local landmark, which still occupies the same site today, albeit in modern premises. Guillaud describes Turner’s rendering of the mountains in the distance as showing ‘the precision of a specialist in topography’.1

A prominent city on France’s Mediterranean coastline, Nice is situated at the foot of the French Alps. The city was part of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia at the time of Turner’s visit and marks the approximate half-way point of the journey described in this sketchbook, which begins in Toulon and ends in Genoa (for a detailed overview of Turner’s itinerary, see the Introduction). There are many drawings of Nice in the present book (see, for example, folios 6 recto, 48 verso and 62 verso; D21281, D21355, D21383), including an extensive, discrete sequence of views recorded on pages towards the end of the foliation (folios 54 verso–59 verso; D21367–D21377).