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

These swiftly rendered sketches depict the Meuse valley between Dinant and Givet. The uppermost view is of Château de Freÿr (given by Turner as ‘Chatux Frée’), the former summerhouse of the Dukes of Beaufort-Spontin. Turner has roughly sketched Freÿr’s terraced formal gardens, laid out in 1760 by Guillaume de Beaufort-Spontin in the style of André Le Nôtre.1 Though the artist’s cursory map suggests little of the gardens’ beauty, they were celebrated at the time for a multitude of ‘sparkling fountains’, ‘gay parterres’, ponds, orangeries, and long walkways lined with trees ripe with fruit.2 Turner’s sketch also shows the hedge mazes and Rococo pavilion backing onto the valley ridge in the background.