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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Rocks on the Meuse; The Abbey of Flône; Distant View of Namur; Hand Carts and Wine Bottles 1824

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 46 Verso:
Rocks on the Meuse; The Abbey of Flône; Distant View of Namur; Hand Carts and Wine Bottles 1824
D19642
Turner Bequest CCXVI 46 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 118 x 78 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Long Bank | the Light and all [...] in the Meuse | without a [?Ripple] or Light’ top; ‘Flume’ centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The uppermost sketch shows the vertiginous limestone cliffs of the Meuse valley near Namur, similar to those recorded on Tate D19641; Turner Bequest CCXVI 46. Below is a view of the abbey at Flône, spelt ‘Flume’ in Turner’s inscription (see also Tate D19619–D19621, D19642, D20086; Turner Bequest CCXVI 34a–35a, 46a, CCXVII 2). The city of Namur, looking upstream towards the confluence of the Sambre and Meuse Rivers, is the subject of the penultimate sketch; for other drawings of Namur taken in 1824 see Tate D19643–D19645, D19647–D19750, D20057, D20059, D20104–D20108; Turner Bequest CCXVI 47–48, 49–50a, 258a–259, CCXVII 12a–15. The jottings at the foot of the page show handcarts loaded with wine bottles: an unsurprising sight given the abundance of vines which are grown on the slopes of the Meuse valley even to this day.

Alice Rylance-Watson
March 2014

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Rocks on the Meuse; The Abbey of Flône; Distant View of Namur; Hand Carts and Wine Bottles 1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-rocks-on-the-meuse-the-abbey-of-flone-distant-view-of-namur-r1174430, accessed 28 March 2024.