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, with the Pont de la Mulatière 1820

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lyon from the River Saône, with the Pont de la Mulatière’ 1820
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 40 Verso:
Lyon from the River Saône, with the Pont de la Mulatière 1820
D16718
Turner Bequest CXCII 39 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 98 x 128 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Boats’ bottom left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch was formerly catalogued as a view of the Île Barbe, an island in the River Saône to the north of the city.1 However, this identification was based upon a misinterpretation of Turner’s inscription in the bottom left-hand corner which in fact reads ‘Boats’. The composition in fact depicts a view of the river to the south, looking downstream towards the Pont de la Mulatière, a bridge crossing the river near the tip of the Presqu’île (a peninsula created by the two rivers). Built during the eighteenth century, the old bridge was demolished in the late 1820s but, as Turner noted in an inscription on another sheet, it was comprised of ‘11 arches’, see folio 39 (D16715; Turner Bequest CXCII 38).
For further sketches of Lyon see folio 37 verso (D16712; Turner Bequest CXCII 36a).

Nicola Moorby
April 2013

1
Finberg 1909, p.573, and Guillaud, Alfrey, Wilton et al. 1981, p.122.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Lyon from the River Saône, with the Pont de la Mulatière 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-with-the-pont-de-la-mulatiere-r1142618, accessed 18 September 2024.