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

Turner made a short detour from Paris, following the River Seine south-west to St-Cloud. The subject of this sketch is the Pont de St-Cloud, a stone bridge only recently built by Napoleon in 1808, which linked the town of St-Cloud with Boulogne-Billancourt on the opposite side of the river. Turner has drawn the western end of the bridge with houses lining the banks of the Seine on the right and a number of boats moored against the side. There also appears to be a small figure with a fishing rod. The vista looks up-river in the direction of the Château de St-Cloud on the right, identifiable from the tall tower at the top of the hill known as the Lanterne de Démosthène. This monument, also built by Napoleon, would later become the subject of an illustration for Turner’s Annual Tour, 1835: Wanderings by the Seine (see Tate D24697; Turner Bequest CCLIX 132).1 Like the château, the lantern was destroyed by the Prussians during the Siege of Paris in 1870. Also visible in the background is part of the distant Pont de Sèvres, just glimpsed through one of the arches of the St-Cloud bridge.

A small part of the composition spills over onto the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 7 verso (D40874). For further sketches of St-Cloud see folios 6 and 12 (D14001 and D14011).