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

The subject of these two sketches remains unidentified, although they are likely to relate to Turner’s return journey through France from Italy in January 1820. The upper study depicts a cart or wagon with horses and people, situated outside a building, possibly a castle. The drawing spills over onto the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 102 (D16880; Turner Bequest CXCIII 101). The lower vista represents a view of a town with a castle on the hill to the left and a church with a pointed tower. The accompanying inscription is indecipherable. Possibly because of an annotation on the opposite page it has been suggested that the subject may be Conches-en-Ouche in Normandy.1 However, the artist’s route did not take him this far north-west of Paris.