Joseph Mallord William Turner

The page contains a sketch, or possibly two sketches, drawn horizontally, of buildings in a landscape, with particular focus on a church in mid-distance. Finberg noted it simply as ‘Church in mid-distance’1 but art historian Ian Warrell states that the sketch depicts the town of Poissy.2 The two-towered shape of the church corresponds to that of the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame in Poissy, yet this location is strangely incongruous with the surrounding sketches, which are all of the town of Harfleur, some 106 miles (or 170 kilometres) distance from Poissy. Furthermore, other views of Poissy all appear together towards the end of the sketchbook, from folio 86 recto (D23868) onwards.

The sizes and positions of the building and trees indicated in the lower right of the page do not seem coherent with the rest of the landscape depicted and are therefore likely to be a separate quick sketch.