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

Travelling by boat from Lyon to Avignon along the Rhône valley, Turner passed the town of Cruas on the right bank of the river, identified by Roland Courtot as the subject of the upper sketch.1 Dominating the view is the Château des Moines, a twelfth-century Romanesque castle. Turner made a further study of Cruas on the recto (D21032).

Two studies fill the lower half of the page, both executed with the sketchbook inverted: a distant view of Cruas, seen from downstream, and the neighbouring village of Rochemaure, from the approach. Turner’s annotation ‘R’, used twice in the lower sketches, may refer to the ‘River’, ‘Rhône’, or indeed ‘Rochemaure’. Further studies of Rochemaure appear on folios 23 recto–25 recto (D21034–D21038).