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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Meuse-Mosel, Luxembourg and Northern ... > Rivers Meuse and Moselle Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Sketches of Rocks and Hills along the Meuse near Namur 1824

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sketches of Rocks and Hills along the Meuse near Namur’ 1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 47 Verso:
Sketches of Rocks and Hills along the Meuse near Namur 1824
D19644
Turner Bequest CCXVI 47 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 118 x 78 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Corn’ top centre, ‘Women white cloth’ centre left, ‘Road’ far left centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner depicts five views of the Meuse valley, showing vertiginous limestone cliffs and fertile sloping banks where ‘Corn’ is grown. Given the scale and striations of the cliffs, Turner may be sketching near Marche-les-Dames, depicted on the folio 48 recto (Tate D19645; Turner Bequest CCXVI 48). The artist has inscribed one of the sketches with ‘women white cloth’, perhaps referring to women washing fabric or hanging it up to dry by the river.

Alice Rylance-Watson
March 2014

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Sketches of Rocks and Hills along the Meuse near Namur 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-sketches-of-rocks-and-hills-along-the-meuse-near-namur-r1174432, accessed 16 April 2024.