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

Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest assigned this work the generic title ‘Various buildings’.1 More recently, the geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot has identified the subject of these two views, executed with the sketchbook turned vertically, as L’Arbresle.2 This French town lies to the west of Lyon, and was likely encountered by Turner in the summer of 1828, during the outward leg of his journey. Further views of L’Arbresle appear on folios 14 recto and 16 recto and verso (D21877, D21881–D21882).

The comparatively detailed upper study depicts the fifteenth-century Church of Saint Jean-Baptiste near the bridge over the River Brévenne, viewed from the south. The structure to the right is likely the Odieu tower. Beneath is a more cursory version of the same view, possibly captured from further away, with trees in the foreground.