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

Multiple panoramic sketches of the long sloping hills around the Seine have been worked into this page in horizontal bands. Quivering lines suggest the wooded brows of hills; long sweeping marks across the landscape along with single vertical lines depict ships’ masts on the river. The inscription towards the top left-hand corner of the page locates at least some of this scenery in the vicinity of Château d’Ételan near the village of Villequier. Indeed, the rapidly-sketched, spiky object in the top right-hand corner of the page may represent the fifteenth-century mansion itself, with its skyline bristling with Gothic pinnacles. The riverside buildings featured in the bottom right-hand sketch record the village of Villequier itself. For Turner’s watercolour on this subject from around this time, see Tate D24669 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 104). Villequier also features on folio 12 recto opposite (D23543; Turner Bequest CCLII 12).