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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Second Italian Tour 1828-9 > Lyons to Marseilles Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Distant View of Beaucaire and Tarascon on the Banks of the River Rhône 1828

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Distant View of Beaucaire and Tarascon on the Banks of the River Rhône’ 1828
Folio 50 Recto:
Distant View of Beaucaire and Tarascon on the Banks of the River Rhône 1828
D21086
Turner Bequest CCXXX 49
Pencil on cream lined wove paper, 111 x 145 mm
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘49’ bottom left, ascending vertically, and ‘4’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXXX 49’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Slight in appearance, this sketch was possibly executed from a moving carriage as Turner left Nîmes behind and continued south-east towards Marseille. The geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot has identified the location as Beaucaire and Tarascon, two towns that face each other across the Rhône.1 Here, they are seen from the west, as Turner sketched Beaucaire to the left and Tarascon to the right. Further studies of these locations appear on folios 50 recto–52 recto (D21086–D21090; Turner Bequest CCXXX 49–51).

Hannah Kaspar
March 2024

1
Roland Courtot, ‘6. Le carnet du voyage de Turner de Lyon à Marseille (CCXXX) (2)’, Carnets de voyage de Turner, accessed 29 January 2024, https://carnetswt.hypotheses.org/517.

How to cite

Hannah Kaspar, ‘Distant View of Beaucaire and Tarascon on the Banks of the River Rhône 1828’, catalogue entry, March 2024, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2025, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/distant-view-of-beaucaire-and-tarascon-on-the-banks-of-the-river-rhone-r1209746, accessed 22 June 2025.