Joseph Mallord William Turner Folies Siffait; Tower of Oudon; Champtoceaux, Loire Valley 1826
Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
Folies Siffait; Tower of Oudon; Champtoceaux, Loire Valley
1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 13 Recto:
Folies Siffait; Tower of Oudon; Champtoceaux, Loire Valley 1826
D23175
Turner Bequest CCXLVIII 13
Turner Bequest CCXLVIII 13
Pencil on white laid paper, 170 x 110 mm
Partial unidentified watermark
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Folls’ towards top left, ‘Chatx’ bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CCXLVIII 13’ bottom right
Partial unidentified watermark
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Folls’ towards top left, ‘Chatx’ bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CCXLVIII 13’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.754, CCXLVIII 13, as ‘Château Hamilton. Cf. Engraving “Wanderings by the Loire,” p.158.’.
1981
Maurice Guillaud, Nicholas Alfrey, Andrew Wilton and others, Turner en France: aquarelles, peintures, dessins, gravures, carnets de croquis / Turner in France: Watercolours, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings, Sketchbooks, exhibition catalogue, Centre Culturel du Marais, Paris 1981, p.213 fig.390.
1991
Ian Warrell, Turner: The Fourth Decade: Watercolours 1820–1830, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1991, p. 53.
1997
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp.81, 209 note 97, 221, 234.
The landscape sketch second from the top of this page depicts the elaborate riverside garden structures newly-built on the estate of the architect Maximilen Siffait, known as the Folies Siffait. The tower at the centre of the page is a fourteenth-century fortress located in the nearby settlement of Oudon. The two views at the bottom of the page show the ruined castle at Champtoceaux on the opposite bank of the River Loire. There are several pages of studies of these sites in this volume. A list of these is provided in the sketchbook introduction. In 1829, Turner exhibited an oil painting entitled The Banks of the Loire (Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts) at the Royal Academy which incorporated the buildings of the Folies Siffait.1 In subsequent years the artist returned to his sketches of Champtoceaux with a view to finding material for engraved reproduction. This resulted in a print in Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France) mistitled Château Hamelin;2 see Tate impression T04693.
John Chu
April 2015
How to cite
John Chu, ‘Folies Siffait; Tower of Oudon; Champtoceaux, 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