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 > Loire, Tours, Orleans and Paris ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Blois, Loire Valley 1826

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Blois, Loire Valley’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 24 Verso:
Blois, Loire Valley 1826
D23291
Turner Bequest CCXLIX 23a
Pencil on white laid paper, 103 x 153 mm
Partial watermark of bunch of grapes
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘High water [...]’ bottom left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled this page with views of the scenery around Blois. The upper half of the page features the cathedral, Bishop’s Palace and the Pont Jacques-Gabriel. The scene below has been located to the area to the east of the city.1 This is one of a substantial number of pages featuring sketches of Blois and its environs, a list of which is provided in the sketchbook introduction. Turner subsequently returned to these drawings as part of a search for subjects for engraved reproduction. This culminated in two printed illustrations for Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France);2 see Tate impressions T04681, T04682.

John Chu
May 2015

1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p.236.
2
Luke Herrmann, Turner Prints: The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 1990, pp.171–83.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Blois, Loire Valley 1826 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 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-blois-loire-valley-r1185130, accessed 26 April 2024.