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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern France 1832 > Loose Studies of Paris and the Seine > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Steamer and Shallow Waters in the Seine, Normandy c.1832

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Steamer and Shallow Waters in the Seine, Normandy’ c.1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Steamer and Shallow Waters in the Seine, Normandy c.1832
D24646
Turner Bequest CCLIX 81
Gouache and watercolour with pen on blue paper, 139 x 190 mm
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner worked gouache and watercolour paints over this ink drawing to depict the potential hazards of travel on the Seine as it flows through Normandy. While a steam ship lets off steam and smoke in the distance, a bank of yellow sand with an alert flag is exposed towards the bottom right-hand corner of the scene. Art historian Ian Warrell has identified two pencil sketches in the Tancarville and Lillebonne sketchbook as sources for the present colour study: see Tate D23808 (Turner Bequest CCLIII 56) and D23810 (Turner Bequest CCLIII 57).1 For a finished watercolour on a comparable theme see Tate D24669 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 135). 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 T06241.
1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, p.271.
Technical notes:
This study was not available for inspection at the time of cataloguing.

John Chu
August 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘A Steamer and Shallow Waters in the Seine, Normandy c.1832 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-steamer-and-shallow-waters-in-the-seine-normandy-r1173086, accessed 20 April 2024.