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

With great economy, Turner composed five topographical views on a single page, alternating he sketchbook between upright and upside-down positions. The close proximity of the studies, with their converging lines, makes it difficult to delineate between the individual landscapes.

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the two upper studies feature a tower, possibly the same building viewed from different vantage points, with the lower vista offering a more distant perspective. As noted in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, the inscription towards the top might refer to ‘Beaucaire’, or more specifically the Château de Beaucaire, a medieval ruin located between Avignon and Nîmes.1 The tentative identification of Beaucaire would place these studies outside the sketchbook’s geographical itinerary. Further studies of Beaucaire appear between folios 50 recto and 52 recto (D21086–D21090; Turner Bequest CCXXX 49–51).

Three cursory profiles of the Rhône valley, executed with the sketchbook turned upright, fill the bottom half of the page.