J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Remarks (Italy) Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Sketches of Calais, France, from the Harbour; Also Studies of Figures and Horses 1820

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Sketches of Calais, France, from the Harbour; Also Studies of Figures and Horses’ 1820
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 104 Recto:
Two Sketches of Calais, France, from the Harbour; Also Studies of Figures and Horses 1820
D16884
Turner Bequest CXCIII 103
Black pen and ink and pencil on white wove paper, 115 x 94 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Red’, ‘Blue’ and ‘R’ within figure studies, parallel with left-hand edge
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘103’ top left, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CXCIII 103’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The two pen and ink sketches on this page depict variant views of the harbour at Calais. It was from here that Turner caught the boat back to Dover at the end of his six month tour of Italy, arriving back in London on 1 February 1820. The uppermost study looks southward from the port to the town, with ships docked beside the quayside and the Tour de Guet and tower of the Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall) visible in the left-hand background. The lower vista meanwhile appears to include a lighthouse on the far right-hand side. These views represent the most detailed drawings within the Remarks (Italy) sketchbook, and are of particular interest because it was not the first time that the artist had seen and drawn Calais. He had first passed through in 1802 and a number of sketches can be found in the Calais Pier sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest LXXXI), and particularly the Small Calais Pier sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest LXXI). Later, during the 1820s, Turner planned an unrealised project to depict the principal Channel ports, and also made a sequence of studies in pen and ink on blue paper (see for example Tate D24949; Turner Bequest CCLX 113).1 Further sketches dating from 1820 can be found on folios 104 verso and 105 (D16885–D16886; Turner Bequest CXCIII 103a–104).
Also on this page are some pencil studies of horses in harness, as well as men and women in contemporary French costume. As was his custom, Turner has annotated the sketches with notes concerning colour.

Nicola Moorby
March 2011

1
See Ian Warrell, ‘Calais’, in Evelyn Joll, Martin Butlin and Luke Herrmann (eds.), The Oxford Companion to J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 2001, pp.37–8.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Two Sketches of Calais, France, from the Harbour; Also Studies of Figures and Horses 1820 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-two-sketches-of-calais-france-from-the-harbour-also-studies-r1138659, accessed 25 April 2024.