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

The view of hillside buildings and a distant arched bridge at the top of this page accords with more than one location sketched by Turner in this volume. The high riverside landscapes around Rouen in Normandy and at Saint-Cloud near Paris both afford similar vantages. Inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, the drawing or a city at the centre of the page can be more certainly located to Rouen with its cathedral’s Gothic towers and pinnacles reflected in the Seine. For examples of the landscape views of Rouen that Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24672 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 107), D24673 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 108), D24727 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 162), D24811 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 246). These culminated in three engravings in the 1834 volume of Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France); see Tate impressions T05604, T05605, T05607.