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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled much of this page with views of the environs of Saint-Cyr-l’École, located some twelve miles south-west of central Paris. A third sketch runs vertically down the right-hand edge of the page. When this sketch was taken, the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, founded by Napoleon in 1802, was housed in the grand building in the centre of the page. Turner made numerous sketches of these environs in the present volume, a list of which is provided in the sketchbook Introduction. The existence of these studies suggests that Turner considered Saint-Cyr-l’École as a subject for an illustration for a new edition of Walter Scott’s Life of Napoleon Buonaparte (1834–36) although it was not included in the publication in the event.1