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 The Castle of Chokier, Looking Upstream; The Abbey of Flône, Looking Downstream; Church Overlooking the Meuse; Distant Hills 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Castle of Chokier, Looking Upstream; The Abbey of Flône, Looking Downstream; Church Overlooking the Meuse; Distant Hills’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 57 Recto:
The Castle of Chokier, Looking Upstream; The Abbey of Flône, Looking Downstream; Church Overlooking the Meuse; Distant Hills 1839
D28148
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 57
Pencil on white wove writing paper, 154 x 94 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘C Chocire’ at top centre, ‘Abbey de Thron’ centre right, and ‘[?Meuse]’ bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘350’ bottom right and ‘57’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXXVII–57’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The village of Chokier lies on the left bank of the Meuse in the province of Liège and is dominated by the Château du Chokier overlooking the valley. The eighteenth-century castle is depicted simply in linear profile in the uppermost drawing, Turner inscribing ‘C Chokier’ at the foot of the precipice. The artist had sketched at Chokier on two previous occasions; see drawings in the Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook of 1824 (Tate D19611; Turner Bequest CCXVI 30a) and the Brussels up to Mannheim-Rhine sketchbook of 1833 (Tate D29754; Turner bequest CCXCVI 81).
The sketch below depicts the Abbey at Flône (Amay) in the province of Liège. Founded in 1075, the site is located on the banks of the Meuse, indicated by the riverboats at the water’s edge. The lattice-like pattern of brickwork on the facades of the abbey’s towers and the slightest suggestion of the belfry are discernable. Turner had visited Flône during his 1824 tour, making drawings of the Abbey in the Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook (Tate D19620, D19642; Turner Bequest CCXVI 35, 46a).
The remaining sketches show a small church with a steeple overlooking the Meuse valley and a distant hilly topography. Turner appears to have inscribed the word ‘Meuse’ inversely towards the bottom right of the page.

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘The Castle of Chokier, Looking Upstream; The Abbey of Flône, Looking Downstream; Church Overlooking the Meuse; Distant Hills 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-the-castle-of-chokier-looking-upstream-the-abbey-of-flone-r1150422, accessed 20 September 2024.