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

Drawn with the book turned upside down, these rough and swiftly rendered sketches show a windmill within a landscape and what appears to be city walls or fortifications. Turner has made note of certain colours, such as the ‘dark’ and ‘cold Blue’ of the sky and a field of ‘Corn’ golden in the light. Turner has also inscribed the name of his friend and fellow English landscape artist, Augustus Wall Callcott (1779–1844); a note suggesting that the artist was reminded of aspects of Callcott’s painted landscapes whilst travelling through this region. As the art historian John Gage has written, it was rare for Turner to reference the art of his contemporaries. With the exception of Girtin and nods to Callcott, it was the landscapes of the Old Masters (Claude, Wilson, Gaspard or Cuyp) that Turner usually emulated and ‘project[ed] into the scenes presented to him on his tours’.1

Close to Callcott’s name is a final inscription which appears to read ‘Douai’: this is a northern French town located on the River Scarpe south-east of Calais which Turner may have passed through on his journey to Brussels.