Take a look at Luxembourg in the century before last

From 4 July to 11 October 2026, the Villa Vauban art museum will host a major exhibition entitled ‘Grand Tourists to Turner’, organised in collaboration with London’s Tate gallery. The exhibition brings together paintings, watercolours and gouaches by the famous marine and landscape painter Joseph Mallord William Turner with works by his outstanding contemporaries, including Richard Wilson, Joseph Wright of Derby and John Robert Cozens.

For centuries, Italy—the cradle of antiquity and the Renaissance—remained the main destination for British artists undertaking their educational journey, the so-called ‘Grand Tour’. However, in the 19th century, under the influence of Romanticism, the geographical scope of their interests began to expand rapidly. Painters began to discover the rugged beauty of the Swiss Alps, the valleys of the Seine, the Loire and the Rhine. Instead of the familiar Roman ruins, Gothic cathedrals and medieval castles increasingly appeared on their canvases, marking a genuine revolution in landscape painting.

Works created by Turner during his visits to Luxembourg in 1824 and 1839 occupy a special place in the exhibition. Visitors will be able to see seven views of the city, painted in gouache, including depictions of the Bock Rock, the Plateau du Rham and the Alzette Valley. These works demonstrate the artist’s unique perspective on the topography of the fortress and its surroundings, captured in his characteristic expressive style.

In addition to the Luxembourg sketches, the exhibition features such iconic works as *Basilica of Constantine in Rome* (1819) and the late Zurich watercolours. A comparison of Richard Wilson’s classical Italian landscapes with Turner’s innovative explorations allows us to trace how British art shifted from the documentary recording of monuments to the depiction of atmospheric phenomena and the emotional perception of nature.