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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Northern France c.1826-32 > Loire, Tours, Orleans and Paris ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Saint-Cyr; Tours, Loire Valley 1826

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Saint-Cyr; Tours, Loire Valley’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 6 Verso:
Saint-Cyr; Tours, Loire Valley 1826
D23257
Turner Bequest CCXLIX 6a
Pencil on white laid paper, 103 x 153 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[...]oopins’, ‘Saint Sear’, ‘St Cry’ bottom left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled the left-hand side of this page with a view of the settlement of Saint-Cyr. In the upper right-hand quadrant of the page, he also included distant westerly views of the Tours, most likely taken from Saint-Cyr. This is one of a substantial number of sketches of Tours and its environs in this volume, a list of which is provided in the sketchbook introduction. Turner subsequently used these drawings as the basis for multiple colour studies and finished watercolours on blue paper with a view to engraved reproduction. These culminated in four printed illustrations for Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France);1 see Tate impressions T04685–T04688.

John Chu
May 2015

1
Luke Herrmann, Turner Prints: The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 1990, pp.171–83.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Saint-Cyr; Tours, Loire Valley 1826 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-saint-cyr-tours-loire-valley-r1185094, accessed 16 April 2024.