According to Ian Warrell, Turner passed through Sisteron in 1828 on his way to Rome and then returned there again in 1835-6 on his way back from Genoa and Nice. Sisteron is situated in the Basses Alpes on the banks of the Durance. It is known as the Porte de la Provence or Gateway to Provence. In the Genoa to Grenoble Sketchbook in the Tate (TB CCXCV) Turner produced a number of pencil drawings of this imposing site and was clearly enthralled by the majesty of the mountain ranges which dominate the river and the little town below. He sketched the town and the citadel several times (see exh. cat. Turner en France, Centre Culturel du Marais, Paris, 1981-82, no. 47, p. 498 ff, figs. 1004-7, repr.)

The fortress, which is perched on a precipitous rock, was built by the counts of Forcalquier in the 11^th century and later became the northern boundary of the domain of the Counts of Provence. It was effectively the barrier between the Alps to the north and Provence to the south. The houses are built into the rock below the citadel and under the slopes of the mountain ridge of Baume-Gache to the left.

Turner made at least six finished watercolours of Sisteron between 1835 and 1836 or in the later 1830’s. They are all drawn on sheets of similar size on buff paper. One is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (A. Wilton, The Life and Work of JMW Turner, 1979, no. 1012) another is at the Whitworth Art Gallery (Wilton, op. cit. no. 1013) a third in Manchester City Art Gallery (Wilton, op. cit. no. 1028) and the other two are in private collections. The two Manchester watercolours show Sisteron viewed from the north and in both drawings Turner has concentrated on depicting the fortress and the town below.  In the V&A watercolour, he has emphasized the town’s dramatic setting as it clings to the side of the gorge. In our watercolour, perhaps the most abstract and ‘sublime’ of the group, we feel  the impact of the mountain on the artist and his sense of the monumentality and dramatic power of nature.