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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Houses by the Meuse 1824

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 27 Verso:
Houses by the Meuse 1824
D19605
Turner Bequest CCXVI 27 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 78 x 118 mm
Watermark ‘smith & [allnut] | 18[22]’
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘ove[...]’, ‘ouvre’ bottom centre towards left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
These slight sketches show a town on the Meuse, and were probably taken as Turner travelled from Liège to Huy. A large eighteenth-century Mosan style building with dormer windows overlooks the river whilst boats with tall masts sail by. Across the river a church can be seen amongst trees and vegetation and beyond it, two towers topped with conical roofs. The same town is shown from the opposite perspective in the uppermost sketch.
There is a possibility that Turner’s inscriptions ‘ove[...]’ and ‘ouvre’ refer to ‘Ougrée’, a village now incorporated into the town of Seraing located just west of Liège and across the river from Tilleur (the village shown on the opposite folio: Tate D19606; Turner Bequest CCXVI 28).

Alice Rylance-Watson
February 2014

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Houses by the Meuse 1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-houses-by-the-meuse-r1174393, accessed 20 September 2024.