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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and French ... > Holland Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Views over the Meuse Valley from the Hills North-West of Liège, with the Citadel beyond the Xhovémont District 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Views over the Meuse Valley from the Hills North-West of Liège, with the Citadel beyond the Xhovémont District’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 157 Verso:
Views over the Meuse Valley from the Hills North-West of Liège, with the Citadel beyond the Xhovémont District 1825
D19151
Turner Bequest CCXIV 157a
Pencil on white wove paper, 95 x 155 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘St Auvemont’ bottom right, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page was used vertically and horizontally both ways for three related, overlapping sketches.
Those between here and folio 162 recto (D19151–D19160) comprise various elevated prospects of Liège from the heights to its north and west, looking over the city and the broad, winding Meuse Valley. Subsequent expansion and redevelopment make the exact viewpoints difficult to establish.
The loose horizontal variant at the outer edge includes buildings in the foreground, giving a sense of height and recession. The vertical version to its right appears to include a bastion towards the foreground, possibly the one shown in detail on folio 158 verso (D19153). Turner’s inscription ‘St Auvemont’, as read by Finberg,1 marking the most carefully rendered sketch (towards the gutter), is likely an attempt at noting his viewpoint: the elevated Naimette-Xhovémont district, north-west of the city centre and west of the Citadel, shown high on the left.
For other views of Liège in this sketchbook and elsewhere, see under folio 155 verso (D19147).

Matthew Imms
September 2020

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.656.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Views over the Meuse Valley from the Hills North-West of Liège, with the Citadel beyond the Xhovémont District 1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2020, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-views-over-the-meuse-valley-from-the-hills-north-west-of-r1202503, accessed 23 June 2025.