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 > Givet, Mézières, Verdun, Metz, Luxemburg ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Luxembourg with the Outer Porte de Thionville in the Foreground; Luxembourg from the South 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Luxembourg with the Outer Porte de Thionville in the Foreground; Luxembourg from the South’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 34 Recto:
Luxembourg with the Outer Porte de Thionville in the Foreground; Luxembourg from the South 1839
D28231
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 34
Pencil on cream laid writing paper, 101 x 168 mm
Partial Pro Patria watermark
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘34’ bottom right
Stamped in black ink ‘CCLXXXVIII–34’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The principal drawing depicts the Porte de Thionville, a fortified gate at Luxembourg city, with the Alzette valley and fortifications on the Rham plateau beyond. The sketch is a preparatory work for a gouache, pen and ink and watercolour drawing on blue paper of around the same date (Tate D20270; Turner Bequest CCXXII K).
Turner has drawn a rough silhouette of Luxembourg from a southerly axis towards the gutter of the sketchbook, drawn inversely to the principal view.
For other sketches of Luxembourg in this book see Tate D28228–D28230, D28266–D28288; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 32a–33a, 56a–67a. See also the earlier Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook of 1824 (Tate D19712, D19714; Turner Bequest CCXVI 82, 83). For colour drawings of Luxembourg see Tate D20220, D20244–D20249, D20258, D20264, D20272–D20273, D20284, D24742; Turner Bequest CCXX M, CCXXI K–N, CCXXII O, CCXXI P, CCXXI Y, CCXXII E, CCXXII M, CCXXII N, CCXXII Y, CCLIX 177; N05240.
Technical notes:
The page is creased in a number of areas; the top left of the page has folded in by about five millimeters.

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Luxembourg with the Outer Porte de Thionville in the Foreground; Luxembourg from the South 1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 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-luxembourg-with-the-outer-porte-de-thionville-in-the-r1150508, accessed 30 June 2024.