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 > Givet, Mézières, Verdun, Metz, Luxemburg ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Four Sketches of Towns between Givet and Mézières: Vireux; Distant View of Fumay; Town 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Four Sketches of Towns between Givet and Mézières: Vireux; Distant View of Fumay; Town’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 12 Recto:
Four Sketches of Towns between Givet and Mézières: Vireux; Distant View of Fumay; Town 1839
D28189
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 12
Pencil on cream laid writing paper, 168 x 101 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘12’ bottom right
Stamped in black ink ‘CCLXXXVIII–12’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The sketches on this page extend onto the folio opposite (Tate D28188; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 11a). They depict the towns of Vireux (now Vireux-Molhain and Wallerand) and Fumay, located south of Givet on the route towards Mézières (now Charleville-Mézières). The sketch at the upper register is a view of Vireux on the Meuse, with a church tower and spire briefly suggested at the right. Below, running across the middle register, is the town of Fumay; the striking bell-shaped spire of the Church of St George rising loftily above the surrounding buildings. The lowermost sketch is a distant view of Fumay, with what appears to be the twin lantern spires of the Château des comtes de Bryas in the middle distance. A road, with a small carriage travelling upon it, leads towards the castle.
Turner briefly sketched Vireux and Fumay in the earlier Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook of 1824 (Tate D19553, D19673, D19676; Turner Bequest CCXVI 7a, 62, 63a).
Technical notes:
There is a small daub of what appears to be red watercolour wash at top right.

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Four Sketches of Towns between Givet and Mézières: Vireux; Distant View of Fumay; Town 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-four-sketches-of-towns-between-givet-and-mezieres-vireux-r1150466, accessed 27 April 2024.