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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled most of this page with a multiple sketches of the long sixteenth- and seventeenth-century façades of the Château de Fontainebleau seen from a distance. A semi-decipherable note featuring the word Melun towards the centre of the page suggests that these views were taken from near the town of that name, situated between the palace and Paris. Turner made numerous sketches of the palace on the 1832 tour with a view to illustrating an episode in Walter Scott’s Life of Napoleon Buonaparte (1834–36); see Tate T04980. A list of pages featuring Fontainebleau in the present volume is provided in the sketchbook Introduction.