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 > Paris, France, Savoy 2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Sketches at Tournus on the River Saône 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sketches at Tournus on the River Saône’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 23 Recto:
Sketches at Tournus on the River Saône 1819
D14025
Turner Bequest CLXXIII 23
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 185 mm
?Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘F’ centre
Stamped in black ‘CLXXIII 23’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains several studies relating to Tournus, a town on the River Saône in the Burgundy region of France.1 Turner appears to have arrived at the town from the river and the two uppermost sketches both depict views seen from the approach to the north, travelling in the direction of Mâcon. The larger of the drawings includes the bridge and the Benedictine Abbey of St Philibert, whilst the smaller, in the top left-hand corner, is taken from slightly further south and shows the twelfth-century Church of St Madeleine. The page also contains a study of the architectural features of one of the arches of the bridge. For a general description and further sketches of Tournus see folio 22 (D14024).
In the bottom right-hand corner there are two thumbnail sketches of a man and a woman in local costume. The female figure wears a black hat angled on one side of her head, a characteristic detail of the regional dress, as described by contemporary guidebooks. For example, author William Coxe noted that:
The costume of the women of Macon and its neighbourhood is pretty, but singular. It consists of a blue cloth petticoat, with a border of deep red, a jacket of the same, and a small felt hat worn over one side of the head only, displaying a neat little white cap, and all the dressing of the hair; on entering a church they take off their small hat, and carry it in their hands. It is a very pleasing sight on a Sunday, or a fête day, to see so many pretty faces all habited in the same fanciful costume.2
Further studies of Mâcconaise costume can be seen on folio 27 verso (D14031).
1
First identified within Guillaud, Alfrey and Wilton 1981, p.110.
2
William Coxe, Galignani’s Travellers Guide through France, Paris 1819, p.62.
Verso:
Blank

Nicola Moorby
February 2013

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Sketches at Tournus on the River Saône 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-sketches-at-tournus-on-the-river-saone-r1142885, accessed 26 April 2024.