Joseph Mallord William Turner

Granville, Normandy

c.1827–8

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Loose Studies of Northern France
Medium
Watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Support: 174 × 244 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D25387
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 264

Catalogue entry

This is one of a batch of colour sketches of the promontory 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
1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp. 217 no.41.
2
Warrell, London 1997, pp.165–71.
Verso:
Inscribed in pencil with the note ‘CCLXIII 264’ in the bottom right-hand corner of the page.

John Chu
March 2016

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