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 Orléans Cathedral, Loire Valley 1826

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Orléans Cathedral, Loire Valley’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 35 Recto:
Orléans Cathedral, Loire Valley 1826
D23310
Turner Bequest CCXLIX 33
Pencil on white laid paper, 103 x 153 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘33’ bottom right, descending vertically, ‘266’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXLIX 33’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled the centre of this page with portal ornamentation of the cathedral at Orléans. This is one of a substantial number of sketches of the city and its environs in this volume, a list of which is provided in the sketchbook introduction. Turner subsequently used these drawings as the basis for multiple colour studies and finished watercolours on blue paper with a view to engraved reproduction. These culminated in a printed illustration for Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France);1 see Tate impression T04679.

John Chu
May 2015

1
Luke Herrmann, Turner Prints: The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 1990, pp.171–83.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Orléans Cathedral, 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-orleans-cathedral-loire-valley-r1185150, accessed 19 April 2024.