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

For Turner at Waterloo in 1817 see Introduction to this sketchbook and notes to folio 16 verso (D12731).

This ‘general view’ is Turner’s most informative conspectus of the château of Hougoumont and its various outbuildings, as seen from the north–west; here, it becomes clear that the complex was built around two yards divided by the chapel and a low wall. More rapid or restricted views from a similar direction are on folio 24 verso (D12746) and intervening pages. Here the curving farm running down to Hougoumont’s main gate from the Nivelles road can clearly be seen. Turner notes the ‘British Lines’ that had been positioned along the ridge to the north.

Early in the 1830s, Turner used this sketch as the basis of a watercolour vignette (private collection),1 engraved by William Miller for volume V of The Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., 1834 (Tate impression: T04730). It illustrated the title–page of Scott’s Paul’s Letters to his Kinsfolk, modelled on the author’s own letters to his family during his European tour in summer 1815. Scott visited Waterloo and described in detail the events of the recent battle, paying tribute to the heroic defence of Hougoumont by British Guards, Black Brunswickers and Nassau sharpshooters from repeated French attacks.

A view of Brussels engraved as the frontispiece of the volume was also based on material in this sketchbook; see folios 10 verso–13 verso (D12719–D12725).