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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Second Italian Tour 1828-9 > Marseilles to Genoa Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Distant View of Èze, from the West 1828

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Distant View of Èze, from the West’ 1828
Folio 15 Recto:
Distant View of Èze, from the West 1828
D21161
Turner Bequest CCXXXI 15
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 174 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Aze’ bottom left
Inscribed in red ink ‘15’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXI 15’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Turner’s inscription suggests (albeit misspelled), this sketch, with the page turned horizontally, depicts a distant view of Èze, one of the famous Provençal ‘villages perchés’ (perched villages) of France’s Mediterranean coastline.1 The artist approached the village from the steep ‘corniche’ road to the west and this vista represents the view looking east, with Èze in the centre and the high promontory of the Tȇte de Chien above Monaco in the far distance beyond.
For further sketches of Èze see folios 1 recto, 15 verso–17 recto and 18 verso–19 recto (D21133, D21162–D21165, D21168–D21169).

Nicola Moorby
March 2017

Revised by Hannah Kaspar
November 2024

1
See Roland Courtot, ‘Les Carnets de William Turner: Recherches d’identification et de localisation des dessins’, unpublished research notes, Université de Provence à Aix, April 2008, p.4, as ‘Eze’ (shared with former Tate cataloguer Nicola Moorby in email correspondence at that date).

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Distant View of Èze, from the West 1828’, catalogue entry, March 2017, revised by Hannah Kaspar, November 2024, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2025, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/distant-view-of-ze-from-the-west-r1209839, accessed 15 April 2025.