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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern France 1832 > Paris and Environs Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Porte Saint-Denis, Paris 1832

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Porte Saint-Denis, Paris’ 1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 167 Recto:
Porte Saint-Denis, Paris 1832
D24494
Turner Bequest CCLVII 167
Pencil on white laid paper, 175 x 127 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘167’ top left and ‘2’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLVII 167’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner worked onto this page a view of the seventeenth-century Porte Saint-Denis, located amidst the Parisian right-bank boulevards. The Porte-Saint-Martin can also be made out in the background. A colour study showing this subject from a similar vantage was subsequently worked up (Tate D24571; Turner Bequest CCLIX 6).1 The existence of these depictions suggests that Turner considered the subject as an illustration for Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France)2 although the Porte Saint-Denis did not make it into this publication in the event.

John Chu
January 2015

1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, p.272.
2
W[illiam] G[eorge] Rawlinson, The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., London 1908, vol.II, pp.264–76 nos.453–92.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Porte Saint-Denis, Paris 1832 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-porte-saint-denis-paris-r1175522, accessed 19 April 2024.