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 Harfleur, Normandy c.1832

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Harfleur, Normandy’ c.1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Harfleur, Normandy c.1832
D24654
Turner Bequest CCLIX 89
Gouache and watercolour with pen on blue paper, 138 x 190 mm
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom left
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner worked ink, gouache, and watercolour paints onto this sheet of blue paper to depict a distant view across Harfleur in Normandy from a western vantage. The spire of the Church of Saint-Martin rises above the town while the wide embouchure of the Seine spreads out on the right-hand side of the scene. For the two other colour studies of Harfleur which Turner worked up around this date, see the entry for Tate D24651 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 86). For his finished watercolour of the town painted with a view to printed reproduction, see Tate D24667 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 102). All this activity culminated in an engraving 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 T05596.
Technical notes:
The verso of this sheet is attached to the mount.

John Chu
August 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Harfleur, 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-harfleur-normandy-r1173095, accessed 25 April 2024.