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 Folies Siffait; Tower of Oudon, Loire Valley 1826

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Folies Siffait; Tower of Oudon, Loire Valley’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 11 Verso:
Folies Siffait; Tower of Oudon, Loire Valley 1826
D23172
Turner Bequest CCXLVIII 11a
Pencil on white laid paper, 170 x 110 mm
Partial unidentified watermark
Inscribed by Turner in paper ‘Ny’ towards top left, ‘W’, ‘C’, ‘Fol’ towards bottom left, inverted
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘37’ bottom left, inverted, ‘355’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner filled much of this page with views of 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. 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

John Chu
April 2015

1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p.181, 183 reproduced

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Folies Siffait; Tower of Oudon, 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-folies-siffait-tower-of-oudon-loire-valley-r1185004, accessed 21 November 2024.