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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Montjean-sur-Loire, Loire Valley 1826

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 21 Recto:
Montjean-sur-Loire, Loire Valley 1826
D23190
Turner Bequest CCXLVIII 21
Pencil on white laid paper, 170 x 110 mm
Partial unidentified watermark
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘10’, ‘5’, ‘4’ right centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘21’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXLVIII 21’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner filled this page with westerly and northerly views of the settlement of Montjean-sur-Loire, perched on its three hills overlooking the River Loire. As Tate curator Ian Warrell has pointed out, there is a small circular form hanging over the topmost sketch which probably represents the afternoon sun in the south rather than the moon.1 There are several pages of studies of this location in this volume which are listed in the sketchbook introduction. Turner subsequently worked up these sketches into colour studies on blue paper with a view to engraved reproduction. These culminated in a print published in Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France) 2 wherein the ruined condition of its monastic and ecclesiastical edifices is more evident; see Tate impression T04691.

John Chu
April 2015

1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p.95.
2
Luke Herrmann, Turner Prints: The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 1990, pp.171–83.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Montjean-sur-Loire, 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-montjean-sur-loire-loire-valley-r1185022, accessed 19 September 2024.