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 Rhône Valley, with a View of ?Cruas 1828

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Rhône Valley, with a View of ?Cruas’ 1828
Folio 22 Recto:
The Rhône Valley, with a View of ?Cruas 1828
D21032
Turner Bequest CCXXX 22
Pencil on cream lined wove paper, 145 x 111 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘[?Croqir Crouir]’, towards bottom right
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘22’ top right, and ‘4’ bottom right
Stamped in black ink ‘CCXXX 22’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Travelling by boat from Lyon to Avignon, Turner encountered the town of Cruas on the right bank of the Rhône, tentatively identified as the subject of the lower sketch. Its architectural landmarks include the ruined Château des Moines and the Romanesque Abbey Sainte-Marie, which Turner sketched in more detail on the verso (D21033). As Finberg noted in his 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, Turner’s inscriptions ‘Croqir’ and ‘Crouir’ next to the bottom sketch likely refer to this location.1 Two slight and possibly unrelated topographical outlines fill the top half of the page.

Hannah Kaspar
March 2024

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.706.

How to cite

Hannah Kaspar, ‘The Rhône Valley, with a View of ?Cruas 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-rhone-valley-with-a-view-of-cruas-r1209691, accessed 22 July 2025.