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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > The Second Meuse-Moselle Tour 1839 > Spa, Dinant and Namur Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Promenade at Spa 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Promenade at Spa’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Recto:
A Promenade at Spa 1839
D28090
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 25
Pencil on white wove writing paper, 94 x 154 mm
Watermarked ‘John [Fellows] | 1[810]’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘350’ bottom right and ‘25’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXXVII–25’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
In this rough sketch wrought in blunt pencil Turner has drawn a tree-lined promenade at Spa. The town was famed for the ‘delightful walks’ and ‘out-of-door recreations’ which could be enjoyed by tourists taking the waters, according to William Chambers.1
For other views of Spa in this sketchbook see Tate D28078, D28082–D28083, D28086–D28089, D28091–D28092, D28107–D28116; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 19, 21–21a, 23–24a, 25a–26, 34a–39a.

Alice Rylance-Watson
April 2013

1
William Chambers, A Tour in Switzerland in 1841, London 1842, p.9.

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘A Promenade at Spa 1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-promenade-at-spa-r1150364, accessed 29 April 2025.