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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner worked a drawing of quayside buildings in Paris onto this page. Also included is a study of the Pont Notre-Dame, the medieval stone arches of which span the lower left-hand quadrant. Turner made several sketches of this section of the river in the present volume, a list of which is provided in the sketchbook Introduction. For the watercolour of this bridge which Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24684 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 119). This led to an engraving in the 1835 volume of Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France); see Tate impressions T04722. In earlier catalogues, the bridge on this page has been misidentified as the Pont d’Arcole suspension bridge, which peeps over the Pont Notre-Dame in the engraving.