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, Loire Valley 1826

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Saumur, Loire Valley’ 1826 (Inside back cover of sketchbook)
Inside back cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Back Cover:
Saumur, Loire Valley 1826
D40689
Turner Bequest CCXLVIII
Pencil on white laid paper, 110 x 170 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink ‘Saumur’ bottom left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled this page with a view of the city of Saumur on the banks of the River Loire. Amongst the structures which have been identified are the castle on the right-hand side of the page, and the Tour Papegault.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.

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.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Saumur, 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-loire-valley-r1185078, accessed 26 April 2024.