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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern France 1832 > Paris and Environs Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Place de la Concorde, Paris 1832

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Place de la Concorde, Paris’ 1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 5 Recto:
Place de la Concorde, Paris 1832
D24175
Turner Bequest CCLVII 5
Pencil on white laid paper, 175 x 127 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘5’ bottom right and ‘2’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLVII 5’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled the lower part of this page with a sketch of the north side of the Place de la Concorde, located on right bank of the Seine at Paris. The large buildings to the right of the scene are the Hôtels Crillon and de la Marine. Art historian Ian Warrell has identified this drawing as the basis for a subsequent colour study: see Tate D24604 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 39).1 The existence of these studies suggests that Turner considered the subject as an illustration for Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France) or the new edition of Walter Scott’s Life of Napoleon Buonaparte (1834–36), although the landmark did not make it into either publication in the event.2

John Chu
January 2015

1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, p.272.
2
W[illiam] G[eorge] Rawlinson, The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., London 1908, vol.II, pp.264–76 nos.453–92, 288–92 nos.525–39.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Place de la Concorde, Paris 1832 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2015, 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-place-de-la-concorde-paris-r1175203, accessed 26 April 2024.