The series of engravings known collectively as The Rivers of France were first published in three successive volumes ( Wanderings by the Loire in 1833, and the Seine in 1834-35) under the title Turner's Annual Tour, with text by Leitch Ritchie. Turner based the compositions (three of them in vignette form) on sketches he made during several visits in the period 1821-32, and the resulting drawings which he prepared for the engravers 'have long been considered as belonging to the finest works on paper produced by Turner in his fifties' ( Herrmann, Turner Prints, pp.166-81). (See also Warrell, Turner on the Loire, and Rawlinson, cat. nos. 432-92.)
For Ruskin, the Rivers of France series was of an importance comparable to that of Turner 's vignettes in Rogers's Italy and Rogers's Poems, as instanced in Ruskin's advice concerning the Rivers of France engravings. In a letter of 10 July 1865, he expressed his view that the engravings 'are the best... ever done from Turner except a few vignettes to Rogers' Poems' ( Works, 38.332). In the late 1870s he remarked that 'the subjects on the Seine are on the whole the most wonderful work he ever did, and the most admirable in artistic qualities'; while those 'on the Loire, less elaborate, are more majestic and pensive' ( Works, 13.449).
Ruskin's early experience of the Rivers of France engravings, which he would later in part purchase led him to consider The Rivers of France as a key to Turner's system of thought. (See also Ruskin, Turner, and engraving.)