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 Saint-Cyr-l'École, Île-de-France 1832

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Saint-Cyr-l'École, Île-de-France’ 1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Verso:
Saint-Cyr-l’École, Île-de-France 1832
D24215
Turner Bequest CCLVII 25a
Pencil on white laid paper, 175 x 127 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled this page with a views of the environs of Saint-Cyr-l’École, located some twelve miles south-west of central Paris. When these drawings were made, the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, founded by Napoleon in 1802, was housed in the grand building with cupolas seen here towards the left-hand edge of the lower sketch. A detail of one of the cupolas is inserted in a circle directly above the drawing of the main building. Turner made numerous sketches of this area in the present volume, a list of which is provided in the sketchbook Introduction. The existence of these studies suggests that Turner considered Saint-Cyr-l’École as a subject for an illustration for a new edition of Walter Scott’s Life of Napoleon Buonaparte (1834–36) although it was not included in the publication in the event.1

John Chu
January 2015

1
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, ‘Saint-Cyr-l’École, 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-saint-cyr-lcole-le-de-france-r1175243, accessed 25 April 2024.