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 Three Sketches; Including Two Views on the River Saône between Mâcon and Trévoux 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Three Sketches; Including Two Views on the River Saône between Mâcon and Trévoux’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 32 Recto:
Three Sketches; Including Two Views on the River Saône between Mâcon and Trévoux 1819
D14040
Turner Bequest CLXXIII 32
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 185 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Beautiful [?reflection]’ bottom centre of top sketch
Stamped in black ‘CLXXIII 32’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains three distinct landscape sketches, the uppermost two of which depict views on the River Saône. Turner used the river to travel south between Chalon-sur-Saône and Lyon and made a large number of sketches from the water. The precise locations are currently unidentified although they almost certainly represent somewhere in between Mâcon and Trévoux, see folios 30 and 39 respectively (D14036 and D14052). The distant hills or mountains in the background suggest that the artist may have been looking west in the direction of the Beaujolais hills. The uppermost vista, inscribed ‘Beautiful reflection’, spills over onto the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 31 verso (D14039).
The subject of the bottom sketch is unknown although it may also depict houses on the banks of the River Saône.

Nicola Moorby
March 2013

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Three Sketches; Including Two Views on the River Saône between Mâcon and Trévoux 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-three-sketches-including-two-views-on-the-river-saone-r1142900, accessed 23 April 2024.