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 Two Distant Views of Thionville from the Moselle 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Distant Views of Thionville from the Moselle’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 30 Recto:
Two Distant Views of Thionville from the Moselle 1839
D28225
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 30
Pencil on cream laid writing paper, 101 x 168 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Waiting for the Ferry’ bottom left | inverted: ‘Nets dry’ at top right, ‘Blanchuses’ top centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘30’ bottom right
Stamped in black ink ‘CCLXXXVIII–30’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The larger of the two sketches shows a small harbour on the Moselle where sailing boats and other light craft are moored. Turner has annotated the drawing with ‘waiting for the ferry’ at the bottom left, implying that he sketched this scene whilst doing exactly that. Thionville is visible in the distance, the twin towers of the Church of Maximin and the bell-tower of the town hall rendered in tentative and agile line.
There is a further sketch of this riverside scene drawn inversely to the principal image and running parallel to the gutter of the book. A figure can be seen sailing a small boat on the Moselle, whilst a woman, described by Turner as a ‘blanchisseuse’ (the French for ‘washerwoman’), stands at the bank. Behind the small shack to the left is an inscription ‘Nets dry’.
For other views of Thionville in this sketchbook see Tate D28224, D28237; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 29a, 37; see also the Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook of 1824 (Tate D19710; Turner Bequest CCXVI 81).
Verso:
Blank

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Two Distant Views of Thionville from the Moselle 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-two-distant-views-of-thionville-from-the-moselle-r1150502, accessed 19 April 2024.