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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > The Second Meuse-Moselle Tour 1839 > Spa, Dinant and Namur Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Distant View of Namur from the Liège Road 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Distant View of Namur from the Liège Road’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 45 Recto:
Distant View of Namur from the Liège Road 1839
D28126
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 45
Pencil on white wove writing paper, 94 x 154 mm
Watermarked ‘[F]ellows | ‘[181]0’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘350’ bottom right and ‘45’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXXVII–45’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
A slight sketch left largely undeveloped, here Turner represents the town of Namur from the Liège road. The defensive citadel can be seen crowning the heights in the background with the dome of Saint-Aubin Cathedral visible at the far right.
This sketch, two others in this sketchbook (Tate D28123, D28127; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 43, 45a) and a loose pencil sketch on blue paper of around 1826 (Tate D20309; Turner Bequest CCXXIV 19) formed the basis of a gouache, pen and ink and watercolour drawing on blue paper of the same view (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge).1 For a similar view in an earlier sketchbook see the Brussels up to Mannheim-Rhine sketchbook of 1833 (Tate D29621, Turner Bequest CCXCVII 13).

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.421 no.1025

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Distant View of Namur from the Liège Road 1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-distant-view-of-namur-from-the-liege-road-r1150400, accessed 23 April 2024.