Carol Rifelj Lecture Series - J. M. W. Turner, Saint Michael's Mount, and Mont Saint-Michel

Pieter Broucke, History of Art & Architecture   J. M. W. Turner, Saint Michael’s Mount, and Mont Saint-Michel In 1811 J. M. W. Turner sketched Saint Michael’s Mount, a tidal island in Cornwall, England. Fifteen years later, he sketched Mont Saint-Michel, a tidal island in Normandy, France. In his London studio, Turner then made studies of both, a process that resulted in an oil painting of the former and a finished watercolor of the latter. Could it be that Turner also made an oil painting of Mont Saint-Michel, part of a pair that favorably compared Early Victorian England to Post-Napoleonic France? And, if so, could that painting be in a private collection right here in Vermont?