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 Interior with Figures, ?Île-de-France 1832

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Interior with Figures, ?Île-de-France’ 1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 24 Verso:
Interior with Figures, ?Île-de-France 1832
D24213
Turner Bequest CCLVII 24a
Pencil on white laid paper, 175 x 127 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[...]ake’ top centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled this page with a study of an interior scene. The women on the right-hand side of the sketch are wearing high headdress, perhaps as part of traditional costume. An illegible note at the top of the drawing presumably records the name of the place depicted, identifying its precise location for the artist. Turner travelled extensively around the satellite settlements of Paris with this sketchbook and also up the River Marne to the east of the city, so this scene was probably captured in one of those regions. Art historians Ann Chumbley and Ian Warrell have suggested that this drawing is related to a colour study of a similar date: Tate D24755 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 190).1

John Chu
January 2015

1
Ann Chumbley and Ian Warrell, Turner and the Human Figure: Studies of Contemporary Life, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1989, p.56 under no.64.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Interior with Figures, ?Île-de-France 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-interior-with-figures-le-de-france-r1175241, accessed 01 October 2025.