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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Second Italian Tour 1828-9 > Lyons to Marseilles Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Mountain of Saint-Geniès; the Castle of Montfaucon 1828

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Mountain of Saint-Geniès; the Castle of Montfaucon’ 1828
Folio 38 Recto:
The Mountain of Saint-Geniès; the Castle of Montfaucon 1828
D21062
Turner Bequest CCXXX 37
Pencil on cream lined wove paper, 145 x 111 mm
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘37’ bottom left, upside down, and ‘4’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCXXX 37’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The four studies on this page are inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation. According to the geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot, they depict Montfaucon on the right bank of the Rhône, which the artist encountered as he approached Avignon.1 At the top is a slight profile of the mountain of Saint-Geniès beyond the village. Beneath are three views of its fortified castle, parts of which date back to the eleventh century. Together, these studies record Turner’s shifting vantage point as he sketched from a moving boat: from upstream, looking south; from head on, facing west; and from downstream, looking north-west.
Citing the present work, Cecilia Powell has commented on Turner’s fondness for castles. See under folio 3 verso (D20995) for a summary of her analysis.

Hannah Kaspar
March 2024

1
Roland Courtot, ‘6. Le carnet du voyage de Turner de Lyon à Marseille (CCXXX) (1)’, Carnets de voyage de Turner, accessed 29 January 2024, https://carnetswt.hypotheses.org/463.

How to cite

Hannah Kaspar, ‘The Mountain of Saint-Geniès; the Castle of Montfaucon 1828’, catalogue entry, March 2024, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2025, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/the-mountain-of-saint-genies-the-castle-of-montfaucon-r1209722, accessed 13 June 2025.