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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled much of this page with a sketch of the Hôtel de Ville with the newly built suspension bridge, the Pont d’Arcole, immediately before it. Named after one of Napoleon’s military victories, this structure 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). There are multiple drawings of the bridge in these pages, a list of which is included in the sketchbook Introduction. These formed the basis for one of the book’s engraved vignettes; see Tate impression T04967.