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 Dinant, Looking Upstream from the Castle of Crèvecoeur above Bouvignes 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dinant, Looking Upstream from the Castle of Crèvecoeur above Bouvignes’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 51 Recto:
Dinant, Looking Upstream from the Castle of Crèvecoeur above Bouvignes 1839
D28138
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 51
Pencil on white wove writing paper, 94 x 154 mm
Watermarked ‘John F[ellows] | 18[10]’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘350’ bottom right and ‘51’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXXVII–51’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This view of Dinant was taken from the neighbouring village of Bouvignes which lies moments north of the city. Turner sketched from the crumbling ruins of the medieval castle of Crèvecoeur which looks out onto the Meuse valley in the direction of Dinant.
Dinant’s sights are in full view: the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame with its celebrated onion-shaped dome is at the centre filled in with light pencil hatching and the citadel behind it stands atop the heights. Boats have been suggested at the left, heading towards the Pont de Dinant.
For other views of the city in this sketchbook see Tate D28042, D28094, D28122, D28125, D28142, D28147, D28153, D28155–D28158, D28160–D28166, D41091; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 1, 27a, 42a, 44a, 53, 56a, 59a, 60a–62a, 63a–66a. There are also colour sketches of the town produced in gouache on blue paper between 1834–9, some with pen and ink and watercolour added (Tate D20227, D20228, D24724, D28984; Turner Bequest CCXX T, U; CCLIX 159, CCXCII 37). There is also a colour sketch of between 1825 and 1834 in the Laing Art Gallery at Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Tyne and Wear Museums) and at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.1
For earlier views of Dinant taken in 1824, see Tate D19556–D19663, D20109–D20113; Turner Bequest CCXVI 53a–57, CCXVII 16–19.

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.421, nos.1026–7 respectively.

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Dinant, Looking Upstream from the Castle of Crèvecoeur above Bouvignes 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-dinant-looking-upstream-from-the-castle-of-crevecoeur-above-r1150412, accessed 22 September 2024.