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 Rocks along the Meuse; A Gateway and the Citadel at Namur 1824

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Rocks along the Meuse; A Gateway and the Citadel at Namur’ 1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 48 Verso:
Rocks along the Meuse; A Gateway and the Citadel at Namur 1824
D19646
Turner Bequest CCXVI 48 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 118 x 78 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Gardens’, ‘3 [?Rv] Sambre’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
These swiftly rendered views depict the rocky outcrops of the Meuse valley, with villages nestled at the base of cliffs and a chateau atop a ridge at top right. The lowermost sketch shows an ornamental gateway with volute ironwork; this structure appears to frame the foot of a bridge crossing a river, probably the ‘Sambre’, which is inscribed to the right of the gate. The heights in the middle distance feature a further stone bridge spanning two sections of a curtain wall with a tower at right; the pronounced arch of this second bridge is similar to structures shown in sketches of Namur citadel on folio 49 recto (Tate D19647; Turner Bequest CCXVI 49).

Alice Rylance-Watson
March 2014

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Rocks along the Meuse; A Gateway and the Citadel at 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-rocks-along-the-meuse-a-gateway-and-the-citadel-at-namur-r1174434, accessed 27 April 2024.