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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner worked two panoramic views of the riverside landscape and ruined abbey at Jumièges onto this page. Situated on the long bend of the Seine between la Mailleraye and Duclair, the abbey’s shattered buildings and high towers are here seen from a low northerly vantage. The scene is backed by steeply sloping hills in the distance while the wide expanse of the river, framed by sail-boats, is featured in the foreground. For the watercolours of Jumièges and its environs that Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24696 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 131), D24577 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 12), D24642 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 77), D24774 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 209), D24739 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 174), D24783 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 218), D24638 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 73). These culminated in an engraving in 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.

Jumièges recurs on several pages in this section of the sketchbook; see folios 69 verso to 70 verso (D24018–D24020; Turner Bequest CCLIX 69a–70a).