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 The Church of Notre-Dame d'Espérance, Mézières, and the Pont de Pierre, from the South-East 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Church of Notre-Dame d'Espérance, Mézières, and the Pont de Pierre, from the South-East’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 13 Recto:
The Church of Notre-Dame d’Espérance, Mézières, and the Pont de Pierre, from the South-East 1839
D28191
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 13
Pencil on cream laid writing paper, 101 x 168 mm
Partial Pro Patria watermark
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘13’ bottom right
Stamped in black ink ‘CCLXXXVIII–13’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Cecilia Powell has identified this view as Mézières, taken from a south-easterly perspective. The sketch formed the basis for an impressive and highly wrought colour drawing of the same view executed in gouache and watercolour on blue paper (Tate D24731; Turner Bequest CCLIX 166). The arched stone bridge, the Pont de Pierre, traverses the Meuse at centre with the profile of the tower of the celebrated Gothic Church of Notre-Dame d’Espérance (Our Lady of Hope) at the right. At top left, close to the gutter of the sketchbook, is a small rough drawing of a building with trees.
For other sketches of Mézières and the Church of Notre-Dame d’Espérance in this sketchbook see Tate D28193, D28195, D28196, D28199, D28201, D28201; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 14, 15, 15a, 17, 18, 19a). See also the 1824 Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook (Tate D19639; Turner Bequest CCXVI 45).

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘The Church of Notre-Dame d’Espérance, Mézières, and the Pont de Pierre, from the South-East 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-church-of-notre-dame-desperance-mezieres-and-the-pont-de-r1150468, accessed 23 April 2024.