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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Northern France c.1826-32 > Rouen, Le Havre, Caen, Bayeux and Isigny ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Boat; Honfleur, Normandy 1826

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Boat; Honfleur, Normandy’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Recto:
Boat; Honfleur, Normandy 1826
D23457
Turner Bequest CCLI 1
Pencil on white wove paper, 83 x 122 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Le Ca[...]ne’ top left, ascending vertically
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘1’ bottom right, descending vertically, ‘199’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLI 1’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner filled this page with sketches of shipping and buildings. In his 1909 Inventory of the Turner Bequest, A.J. Finberg suggested that these were taken at Caen or near Isigny based on a semi-legible note by Turner in the top right-hand corner of the page although Tate curator Ian Warrell has since identified the scene to Honfleur.1 The artist filled several pages of the present volume with studies of this harbour town, a list of which is included in the sketchbook introduction.

John Chu
July 2015

1
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.762; Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, pp.110, 259 note 34

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Boat; Honfleur, Normandy 1826 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-boat-honfleur-normandy-r1185300, accessed 17 May 2024.