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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner here assumed a position close to the Pont au Change in Paris and sketched the buildings on the right bank of the Seine with the Tour Saint-Jacques rising above surrounding rooftops. On the far side of the bridge can be glimpsed the Colonne du Châtelet of the Napoleonic era. 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.