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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled this page with views of riverside landscapes punctuated by buildings. A note beneath the top sketch locates the scene at the town of Brienne-le-Château, situated around one hundred miles east of Paris. The grand eighteenth-century country house near this town can be seen perched on a hill to the left-hand side of each view. Napoleon studied at the military academy close by so this site was of particular interest to the artist as he sought subjects to illustrate a new edition of Walter Scott’s Life of Napoleon Buonaparte (1834–36). This drawing contributed one of the volume’s engraved illustrations; see Tate impression T04969. A list of pages in the present volume featuring this subject is provided in the sketchbook Introduction.