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 Notre-Dame, Mézières, from the South-West 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Notre-Dame, Mézières, from the South-West’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 14 Recto:
Notre-Dame, Mézières, from the South-West 1839
D28193
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 14
Pencil on cream laid writing paper, 101 x 168 mm
Partial Pro Patria watermark
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘14’ bottom right
Stamped in black ink ‘CCLXXXVIII–14’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The focal point of this view of Mézières is the tower of the celebrated Gothic Basilica of Notre-Dame d’Espérance (Our Lady of Hope), which rises loftily above tiers of gabled rooftops. This and other sketches of the same subject contributed to an impressive and highly wrought drawing of the city executed in gouache and watercolour on blue paper (Tate D24731; Turner Bequest CCLIX 166). The other preparatory sketches include: Tate D28191, D28195, D28196, D28199, D28201, D28201; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 13, 15, 15a, 17, 18, 19a. For an earlier sketch of the tower of Notre-Dame d’Espérance see the 1824 Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook (Tate D19639; Turner Bequest CCXVI 45).
A small and rough drawing of a bridge, probably the Pont de Pierre, is at the top right of the page.

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Notre-Dame, Mézières, from the South-West 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-notre-dame-mezieres-from-the-south-west-r1150470, accessed 22 November 2024.