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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > French Tour 1821 > Dieppe, Rouen and Paris Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Rouen Cathedral with the Portail de la Calende 1821

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Rouen Cathedral with the Portail de la Calende’ 1821
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 9 Recto:
Rouen Cathedral with the Portail de la Calende 1821
D24516
Turner Bequest CCLVIII 9
Pencil on white wove paper, 123 x 118 mm
Inscriptions in pencil by Turner at a centre of the page
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘9’ top right running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLVIII – 9’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the sketchbook turned to the left, this detailed architectural and street-scene sketch depicts the south transept portal – Portail de Calende – of Rouen Cathedral, with a view looking west along the Rue du Change towards the cathedral’s Tour de Beurre. Turner used this sketch as the basis of a gouache and watercolour study on blue paper: Tate D24787 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 222) executed around 1832 in relation to the Wanderings by the Seine volume of the Turner’s Annual Tour publication.1
There is a more distance view of the south transept on folio 10 verso (Tate D24519; Turner Bequest CCLVIII 10a), a sketch of the northern transept portal (Portail des Libraires) on folio 10 (D24518; Turner Bequest CCLVIII 10), and there are further architectural studies on folios 11 and 11 verso (Tate D24520 and D24521; Turner Bequest CCLVIII 11, 11a); see folio 1 (Tate D24500; Turner Bequest CCLVIII 1) for references to all of Turner’s sketches of Rouen in this sketchbook.

Thomas Ardill
February 2013

1
Warrell 1999, p.272 under no.106.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Rouen Cathedral with the Portail de la Calende 1821 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-rouen-cathedral-with-the-portail-de-la-calende-r1146303, accessed 23 April 2024.