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 Barges; St-Florent-le-Vieil, Loire Valley 1826

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Barges; St-Florent-le-Vieil, Loire Valley’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 16 Verso:
Barges; St-Florent-le-Vieil, Loire Valley 1826
D23182
Turner Bequest CCXLVIII 16a
Pencil on white laid paper, 170 x 110 mm
Partial unidentified watermark
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘The First Boat guides the rest.and | the rudder of the last over [...]’ centre, ‘Florin’, ‘Florent’ bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘32’ bottom left, inverted and ‘355’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner filled the top half of this page with sketches of the sailed barges distinctive to the Loire Valley.1 A semi-legible note at the centre of the page records some manoeuvre of these vessels which Turner evidently found of interest. At the bottom of the page, inverted in relation to the sketches above, are featured distant views of the Benedictine abbey of St-Florent-le-Vieil on its hilltop overlooking the Loire. In subsequent years the artist returned to his sketches of St-Florent-le-Vieil 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);2 see Tate impression T06209. There are several pages of studies of this location in this volume. A list of these is provided in the sketchbook introduction.

John Chu
April 2015

1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp. 64–7
2
Luke Herrmann, Turner Prints: The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 1990, pp.171–83.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Barges; St-Florent-le-Vieil, 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-barges-st-florent-le-vieil-loire-valley-r1185014, accessed 19 April 2024.