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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Return from Italy Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Lyon from the River Saône to the South 1820

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lyon from the River Saône to the South’ 1820
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 38 Verso:
Lyon from the River Saône to the South 1820
D16714
Turner Bequest CXCII 37 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 98 x 128 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘8 Horses towing | 2 a breast’ bottom right of top sketch
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains two views of Lyon seen from the south of the city. Turner’s viewpoint is the banks of the River Saône near its confluence with the River Rhône. The lower prospect depicts the view looking north into the heart of the city with the Fourvière hill on the left and the Pont du Change connecting the old town (the Vieux Lyon), with the Presqu’île peninsula to the right. The upper vista meanwhile represents the other side of the Presqu’île with the Rhône on the right. The artist has also made a note of an incidental detail he witnessed of horses towing boats along the river, ‘2 abreast’.

For further sketches of Lyon see folio 37 verso (D16712; Turner Bequest CXCII 36a).
Finberg noted that a leaf had been torn out after this point in the sketchbook.1

Nicola Moorby
April 2013

1
Finberg 1909, p.572.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Lyon from the River Saône to the South 1820 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-lyon-from-the-river-saone-to-the-south-r1142614, accessed 20 September 2024.