J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled much of this page with a view up to Château Gaillard from the base of its steep eminence. The ruins of the twelfth-century fortifications are seen a little to the west at which point the Seine flows north past the nearby villages of Les Andelys.

Of all the Seine valley sights, Château Gaillard and Les Andelys were the subject of particular study in this sketchbook. For a list of associated sketches in the volume, see the entry for folio 51 verso (D23982; Turner Bequest CCLIV 51a). For the watercolours of this landmark in the Turner Bequest that the artist worked up with a view to engraved reproduction, see Tate D24678 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 113) and D24692 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 127). These culminated in two engravings in the 1835 volume of Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France); see Tate impressions T04708 and T04709.