Joseph Mallord William Turner

Granville, Normandy

c.1827–8

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Loose Studies of Northern France
Medium: Watercolour on paper
Dimensions: Support: 297 × 484 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D25212
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 90

Catalogue entry

This is one of a batch of colour sketches of the promontory at Granville in Normandy which Turner worked up from material gathered on his 1826 tour of Northern France. It is based on pencil drawings jotted down in the Cherbourg, Coutances and Mont St Michel sketchbook; see D23345 and D23362 (Turner Bequest CCL 5a, 15).1 See the Introduction to this section for a list of the comparable colour sketches of Granville. These may have been worked up in connection with one of several abortive attempts to put the material gathered on the 1826 tour of Northern France to use, most likely the failed The English Channel or La Manche print series.2

Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp. 217 no.39.

Ibid. pp.165–71.

Verso:

Inscribed in pencil with the note ‘CCLXIII 90’ and stamped in black with the Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCLXIII – 90’.

John Chu
March 2016

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