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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled the bottom half of this page a drawing of the Palais Bourbon as seen from the right bank of the Seine. The building’s portico can be seen on the right-hand side of the scene with the arched Pont de la Concorde stretching across the central strip of the page. Turner made several sketches of the Parisian riverside in the present volume, a list of which is provided in the sketchbook Introduction. For the watercolours of the city’s quaysides which Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24683–D24685 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 118–20). These culminated in several engravings in 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.