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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled the bottom half of this page with a view of the town of Melun, located some twenty-eight miles south-east of central Paris on the banks of the Seine. The two towers of the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame are featured prominently in the centre of the page, rising above the surrounding buildings. Turner made several sketches of Melun in the present volume, a list of which is provided in the sketchbook Introduction. For the watercolour of the town which Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24690 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 125). This led to an illustration 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 impression T04725. A second landscape view, inverted in relation to the sketch of Melun, is featured along the top edge of the page.