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

Turner’s panoramic study takes in the scattered buildings and fortifications of an unidentified town. Architectural detailing is reserved for the prominent arched entrance and the ramparts, which extend up the hillside to the right. The hills on the horizon are dotted with buildings and towers, while the lower half of the page is sparsely detailed, except for the two bridges leading into the foreground.

Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest groups this drawing among other works on blue paper, ‘mostly very slight in character’ and likely depicting French or possibly northern Italian subjects.1 As Finberg noted, John Ruskin dismissed most of the sheets in the bundle numbered CCLXI 1–128 as ‘Chalk scrawls on grey. Rubbish’.2

Between his first expedition to the Continent in 1802 and his final journey abroad in 1845, Turner travelled through France on multiple occasions; this drawing is possibly linked to one of the four visits to France he undertook between 1826 and 1832. See the Introduction for general remarks on this grouping.
 

Verso:

Blank, except for pencil inscription ‘224’ top left. Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right.