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

In six swiftly rendered views Turner depicts the villages of Annevoie-Rouillon, Godinne, and Yvoir on the Meuse. The uppermost sketch shows the river valley and bears the inscription ‘St Bruno or Pruino’; below, Turner depicts Godinne (inscribed ‘Gondin’) with its chateau, the ‘Maison de’ Bailly, and the adjoined Church of Saint-Pierre. Situated on the riverbank, the mansion was constructed in the sixteenth century as a priory and was later remodelled in the eighteenth century by the noble Mesnil de Wolkrange family, the barons of Godinne.1 The central sketch depicts Rouillon (inscribed by Turner as ‘Roulay’) and its Château d’Annevoie overlooking the river. Annevoie is celebrated for its gardens, laid out in about 1758 by the scion of the Montpellier family whose patriarch had purchased the estate at the beginning of the seventeenth century.2 The gardens integrate French Renaissance, Italianate and English Romantic styles of landscaping, inspired by those that Charles-Alexis de Montpellier had seen on his Grand Tour.3 Its multitude of ornamental fountains, cascades, canals, jets, pools and ponds did not go unnoticed by Turner, as he writes in an inscription at the foot of the page that Annevoie is the ‘Palace of Eau’ (‘Palace of Water’). The lowermost sketches are taken from a point further south, and show the Meuse valley near ‘Evrey’ (Yvoir).