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 Arc de Triomphe, Paris 1832

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Arc de Triomphe, Paris’ 1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 126 Verso:
Arc de Triomphe, Paris 1832
D24416
Turner Bequest CCLVII 126a
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 much of this page with studies of Paris’s monuments and their architectural details. The Arc de Triomphe, commissioned by Napoleon at the height of his success, features prominently at the centre of the page. The existence of this drawing suggests that Turner considered the subject as an illustration for Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France) or the new edition of Walter Scott’s Life of Napoleon Buonaparte (1834–36), although the landmark did not make it into either 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, ‘Arc de Triomphe, Paris 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-arc-de-triomphe-paris-r1175444, accessed 21 September 2024.