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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Autumn Tour of Northern France 1845 > Dieppe Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Church of St-Jacques and Dieppe Harbour 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Church of St-Jacques and Dieppe Harbour’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Recto:
The Church of St-Jacques and Dieppe Harbour 1845
D35460
Turner Bequest CCCLX 2
Gouache, pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 232 x 332 mm
Watermarked ‘J WHATMAN TURKEY MILL 1844’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘mud Rock’ bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘2’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCCLX 2’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
In delicate watercolour washes, Turner depicts the across Dieppe harbour from near the district of Pollet towards the medieval Church of St-Jacques. Prominent in the centre of the page are the edifice’s tall west tower, and a little before it, the seventeenth-century dome that rises above its crossing.1 The expansive harbour waters are indicated by a wide band of blank ‘reserved’ paper in the foreground and a rapidly pencilled fishing boat; evidence of the town’s industrial mainstay.2 That the view was taken at low tide is perhaps suggested by the inscriptions of ‘mud’ and ‘Rock’ at the bottom of the page.
For reasons set out in the Technical notes of the sketchbook Introduction, this work appears inverted in relation to the volume as foliated.
1
Jean Benoi^t De´sire´ Cochet, Les Églises de l'Arrondissement de Dieppe, Dieppe 1846, pp.57–127.
2
John Murray (ed.), Hand-Book for Travellers in France, revised ed., London, Paris and Leipzig 1844, p.23.
Verso:
Blank; except for small spots of watercolour transferred from folio 2 recto opposite (D35461; Turner Bequest CCCLX 3).

John Chu
February 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘The Church of St-Jacques and Dieppe Harbour 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-the-church-of-st-jacques-and-dieppe-harbour-r1173556, accessed 24 April 2024.