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 Saumur; Montsoreau and Candes St-Martin, Loire Valley 1826

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Saumur; Montsoreau and Candes St-Martin, Loire Valley’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Recto:
Saumur; Montsoreau and Candes St-Martin, Loire Valley 1826
D23222
Turner Bequest CCXLVIII 37
Pencil on white laid paper, 110 x 170 mm
Partial unidentified watermark
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘37’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXLVIII 37’ top right, running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner the upper half of this page with a view of the city of Saumur on the banks of the River Loire. The domed Church of Notre-Dame des Ardilliers has been identified on the left-hand side of the scene.1There are several pages of studies of Saumur 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 two prints: one published in The Keepsake annual (1831) and the other in Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France);2 see Tate impressions T05107 and T04689. Warrell also identified the scene just below the top drawing as the riverside close to the settlements of Montsoreau and Candes-St-Martin and suggested that it served as the basis for an illustration of the Annual Tour; see Tate impression T04690.3

John Chu
April 2015

1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p. 235.
2
Luke Herrmann, Turner Prints: The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 1990, pp. 164–6, 171–83.
3
Ian Warrell, London 1997, p. 235.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Saumur; Montsoreau and Candes St-Martin, 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-saumur-montsoreau-and-candes-st-martin-loire-valley-r1185054, accessed 26 April 2024.