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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled this page with studies of the riverside buildings of Paris. The area depicted is to the west of the city where the Seine flows under the Pont de la Concord and past the columned Palais Bourbon, seen here in the lower right-hand quadrant. There are numerous pages featuring the riverside of Paris in the present volume, a list of which is provided in the sketchbook introduction. Turner made numerous studies of the city’s quaysides over the course of his career, culminating in several illustrations of the subject for the 1835 volume of Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France); see Tate impressions T05621–T05623.