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 Saint-Cyr-l'École, Île-de-France 1832

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Saint-Cyr-l'École, Île-de-France’ 1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Recto:
Saint-Cyr-l’École, Île-de-France 1832
D24214
Turner Bequest CCLVII 25
Pencil on white laid paper, 175 x 127 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘25’ bottom right and ‘2’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLVII 25’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled most of this page with a view of the environs of Saint-Cyr-l’École, located some twelve miles south-west of central Paris. When this sketch was taken, the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, founded by Napoleon in 1802, was housed in the grand building with cupolas seen here in the upper left-hand quadrant of the page. Turner made numerous sketches of this area 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

John Chu
January 2015

1
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, 288–92 nos.525–39.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Saint-Cyr-l’École, Île-de-France 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-saint-cyr-lcole-le-de-france-r1175242, accessed 05 November 2025.