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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Northern France c.1826-32 > Nantes, Angers and Saumur Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Champtoceaux, Loire Valley 1826

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Champtoceaux, Loire Valley’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 13 Verso:
Champtoceaux, Loire Valley 1826
D23176
Turner Bequest CCXLVIII 13a
Pencil on white laid paper, 170 x 110 mm
Partial unidentified watermark
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘35’ bottom left, inverted, ‘355’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner filled much of this page with sketches of the ruined castle at Champtoceaux located on the banks of the River Loire. At the centre of the page, the remains of the old toll station are seen perched on their stone arches. There are several pages of studies of this site in this volume. A list of these is provided in the sketchbook introduction. In subsequent years the artist returned to his sketches of Champtoceaux with a view to finding material for engraved reproduction. This resulted in a print in Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France) mistitled Château Hamelin;1 see Tate impression T04693.

John Chu
April 2015

1
Luke Herrmann, Turner Prints: The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 1990, pp.171–83.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Champtoceaux, Loire Valley 1826 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-champtoceaux-loire-valley-r1185008, accessed 26 April 2024.