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

The rough sketch of riverside buildings on this page forms part of a wider vista, most of which is contained on folio 2 recto (D21767) opposite. In his 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, Finberg described this view as ‘Town, with river and bridges’, but was unable to pinpoint a more precise location.1 More recently, the geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot has identified the subject as the French city of Lyon.2 Turner’s vantage point, according to Courtot, is from the Pont du Change, which spans the River Saône. This eleventh-century seven-arched stone bridge was replaced in the 1840s but sustained damage during the Second World War and was finally demolished in 1974.3 Turner’s viewpoint is facing south-west towards the Cathedral of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, depicted on the page opposite. Just visible to the far right of the present page are two arches of the Pont Napoleon, which continues on the page opposite.

Together with folios 2 recto and 3 recto (D21767, D21769), which also depict Lyon, this sketch falls outside the geographical itinerary embodied by this Viterbo and Ronciglione sketchbook. Chronologically, these depictions of Lyon are also noteworthy as either the earliest or the latest sketches of Turner’s 1828–9 tour of France and Italy; it is unclear whether he executed them on the outward or return leg of his journey.

Turner first sketched Lyon in 1802, and later in 1819–20 during his first major tour of Italy: for a list of relevant works, see Nicola Moorby’s entry in the Paris, France, Savoy 2 sketchbook of 1819 (Tate D14071; Turner Bequest CLXXIII 51).