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Whistler was writing, he said, 'under the very walls of Chenonceau - the Kingly Chateau of Francis I...' The Château de Chenonceau spans the River Cher, near the village of Chenonceaux in the Indre-et-Loire département of the Loire Valley in France.

Two of the sketches may be studies for the etching Château Touraine [410].

However it is not certain if the subject is actually the Château de Chenonceau. In the sketch, which is the actual view (the etching being reversed in printing) the tower is to right of a taller building or wall and to left of the lower two-storey building, and the steps in front are more clearly defined.

In 1864, Daniel Wilson, a Scotsman who had made a fortune installing gaslights in Paris, bought the Château de Chenonceau for his daughter. She held lavish parties until the money ran out and the château was seized. It was sold to José-Emilio Terry, a Cuban millionaire, in 1891 and he sold it in 1896 to a relation, Francisco Terry. This would fit with the run-down appearance of the building. However, the main Château de Chenonceau is a spectacular building surrounded by a moat, and reached by a bridge, and it is not clear where in the garden or grounds Whistler could have got such a view. The building drawn and etched by Whistler looks more like a substantial house, estate buildings or stables rather than the main château.