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 > Meuse-Moselle Gouache and Watercolour ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Rocks on the Meuse c.1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Rocks on the Meuse’ c.1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Rocks on the Meuse c.1839
D24736
Turner Bequest CCLIX 171
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 140 x 190 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CCLIX 171’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This drawing depicts some of the precipitous limestone cliffs of the Meuse valley, though the exact location is unknown. Rendered in earthy hues of sienna brown, copper, sand, buff, and mauve with sparing smudges of blue for the sky, Turner has also reproduced the ‘perpendicular markings’ or geological striations, which are a ‘special feature’ of these Mosan cliffs.1
1
Cecilia Powell, Turner’s Rivers of Europe: The Rhine, Meuse and Mosel, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1991, p.157 no.92.
Verso:
Inscribed in pencil ‘CCLIX 171’ bottom right.

Alice Rylance-Watson
June 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Rocks on the Meuse c.1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 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-rocks-on-the-meuse-r1151006, accessed 26 April 2024.