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 Château de Fontainebleau, Île-de-France 1832

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Château de Fontainebleau, Île-de-France’ 1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 88 Verso:
Château de Fontainebleau, Île-de-France 1832
D24340
Turner Bequest CCLVII 88a
Pencil on white laid paper, 175 x 127 mm
Insribed in pencil ‘Melun from the [...] Road’ centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
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.

John Chu
January 2015

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Château de Fontainebleau, 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-chateau-de-fontainebleau-le-de-france-r1175368, accessed 18 September 2024.