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

Turner worked gouache and watercolour paints over this ink drawing to depict the medieval abbey at Jumièges, Normandy. In the foreground, a gap in the trees leads the eye to the edifice’s high, ruined walls. A flick of white paint in the sky, meanwhile, suggests a crescent moon hanging over a nocturnal scene. Sketches of this riverside landmark recur frequently in the Seine and Paris sketchbook of a similar date and appear to have contributed to the conception of this colour study. For a list of these sketchbook drawings, see the entry for Tate D24021 (Turner Bequest CCLIV 71). For the finished watercolour of the abbey which Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24696 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 131). All this activity culminated in an engraved illustration for the 1834 volume of Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France); see Tate impression T05602.

Verso:

The bottom centre of the sheet is inscribed in pencil with a note reading ‘111’.