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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Paris, France, Savoy 2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The River Seine at St-Cloud with the Lanterne de Démosthène and the Pont de Sèvres in the Distance 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The River Seine at St-Cloud with the Lanterne de Démosthène and the Pont de Sèvres in the Distance’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 10 Recto:
The River Seine at St-Cloud with the Lanterne de Démosthène and the Pont de Sèvres in the Distance 1819
D14008
Turner Bequest CLXXIII 10
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 185 mm
Stamped in black ‘CLXXIII 10’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner made a short detour from Paris, following the River Seine south-west to St-Cloud. This sketch depicts a view of the river at St-Cloud with the tree-lined road beside the river bank on the right, and the distant Pont de Sèvres visible upstream (north) on the left. The hill to the right slopes upwards towards the Château de St-Cloud, identifiable from the tall tower at the summit known as the Lanterne de Démosthène.1 This monument, 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).2 Like the château, the lantern was destroyed by the Prussians during the Siege of Paris in 1870.
A small part of the composition spills over onto the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 9 verso (D14007). For further sketches of St-Cloud see folios 6 and 12 (D14001 and D14011).

Nicola Moorby
March 2013

1
First identified in Guillaud, Alfrey, Wilton and others 1981, pp.107–8.
2
For a full discussion see Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, pp.18–19, 225–8.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘The River Seine at St-Cloud with the Lanterne de Démosthène and the Pont de Sèvres in the Distance 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-river-seine-at-st-cloud-with-the-lanterne-de-demosthene-r1142868, accessed 23 November 2024.